


Hello, Mr. Cupid

by LifeOfABridesmaid



Category: Fall Out Boy, Panic! at the Disco, Twenty One Pilots
Genre: All the characters have too much free time, Anyway I'm dead inside, Brendon Urie is half demon, Everyone has cool powers eventually, HIS NAME IS CASEY, I made an original male character r u proud of me mom, I sent this fic to my language arts teacher and she is proud, I. DON'T. CARE WHAT U THINK AS LONG AS IT'S ABOUT MEEEEE, M/M, Maybe when they all grow old and die, My language teacher taught us to show, Oh yeah and there's Ryden, Patrick can read minds sometimes, Patrick is a smol bean, Peterick, Read my story, Really slow plot progression, Right?, Ryan Ross studies drag queens, SRAR era onward, THE VILLAIN IS A DRAG QUEEN, That's a happy ending, Umm Pete is like a human cupid, WHAT'S THE WORST THING I CAN SAYYYYY, When will this story end I have no idea, and Trohley, and maybe Joshler, everyone is a smol bean, i don't know yet, lots of inner monologue, not tell
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-04-26
Updated: 2018-05-01
Packaged: 2019-04-28 06:07:49
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 22
Words: 36,073
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14443008
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/LifeOfABridesmaid/pseuds/LifeOfABridesmaid
Summary: Honestly, Patrick needed some time to sort things out-- alone. But maybe having Pete there might not be so bad.:-:Patrick wakes up one dreary morning on the Save Rock and Roll tour to find that he can suddenly read minds (and talk to animals, but that's not important), and a whole world of strange occurrences unravels before him. Pete Wentz can make anyone fall in love, and more importantly, there is a high school graduate drag queen who is determined to make life in the band miserable.Or, I suck at writing angst and instead give everyone superpowers.





	1. Hello, Mr. Cupid

Honestly, Patrick just needed some time to sort things out— alone. But maybe having Pete there wouldn’t be so bad.

:-:

Patrick Martin Vaughn Stump got more time off than anyone he knew, which left him sitting on his couch at three in the morning and questioning his life choices rather often. Today, of course, he was laying in bed, unable to sleep. He simply had too much free time, he figured, and seeing that he was still single, he was also lonely. His mother told him that getting a girlfriend would be easy, because he was famous, but the statement in itself had so much wrong with it-- for one, Patrick wanted someone who would love him for himself, rather than his musical career, and secondly, Patrick didn’t even like girls. He was gay. Very gay, and very proud of it. But everyone he had met always assumed he was straight, and he never corrected them, so that was how he was viewed in the public eye.

Not only was Patrick lonely, though. His relationship issues were the least of his worries because he had far more important things to worry about. For instance-- his job, his personal life, his odd powers…

As he thought more are more about his responsibilities, he stopped. Because, yes, he had strange powers. He could read minds and talk to animals, and somehow the two seemed connected. It was a new arrangement for the singer, but it also made him feel a little less lonely because he had made a friend out of the stray cat in the alley (whose name was Martha), yet a little more self-conscious, because he had heard someone think he was fat, and his weight was an issue he struggled with ever since middle school. Oftentimes, he would drift off, only to hear voices and images pound his head like a hangover, and Advil never really helped the pain. The voices made him paranoid, more paranoid than he was in the first place, because he was already extremely paranoid.

And one would think, “how does the singer for this famous band play a concert if he can read people’s minds?” It was more painful than Patrick had originally thought to play shows, because everyone in the crowd was thinking, and that many thoughts in his head at once was painful enough to kill him. But if he focused on one thing, and one thing only, then the voices would ease. Dampening the voices was difficult, but music was Patrick’s passion, and he couldn’t just give up now. He got an adrenaline high when he was up there on the stage— he was in no way an adrenaline junkie, but he was often filled with euphoria when he saw the raging fans that really wouldn’t be raging if they didn’t like his band— and just being there was enough for him.

But, at the moment, he was overheating under his blanket and was undeniably too lazy to move. That whole mind reading thing really couldn’t help him now, he pondered, but hey, if a bird just so happened to grace him with its presence, then he wasn’t complaining. But he was also sweating quite a lot and questioning why he was deciding to be lazy in the first place, but was too lazy to actually answer his own question, and so the cycle continued and he stayed in bed.

But then, of course, the awaited chirp of a blue jay came through his open window and said bird was perched behind the screen. Patrick didn’t hear a chirp, though, what he heard was an indignant— and very insulting— “I will die from the stench of sweat if you don’t get that blanket off right now, and I know you can hear me because I’m the sassiest bird you’ve ever seen” and all Patrick really did was grunt and roll over, swinging that damned blanket off somewhere and enveloping himself in coolness because he was only really wearing night pants and no shirt. The bird wasn’t actually the sassiest bird he’d ever seen— that title would go to the one and only, Gerard Way (even though Gerard was not a bird and therefore unable to compete). And maybe he would’ve told the bird to just go away, but then there was the fact that one, he was lazy, and two, he was finally actually comfortable, so he just laid there until the bird got annoyed and left. 

This whole reading-minds-and-talking-to-animals thing was actually a recent development. Patrick didn’t know how or why he got these “powers,” but what he did know is that he didn’t have them before and that left much room for more surprises. Patrick didn’t want more surprises. It had started a few months before, when he was getting ready to sleep and took a walk to clear his head, something he did quite a lot. But he could hear this nagging in the back of his head, saying he was fat and should die, and maybe that was just insecurity, but it actually sounded like a voice, getting louder and louder in his head until it was throbbing. It was a human voice. So he spun around, looking for whoever said it, until he saw a man across the street glaring at him. The words continued but his lips didn’t move. Am I… am I reading his mind? Patrick had thought, and in the heat of the moment, in stress, confusion, and frustration, he just ran. The talking to animals part came a bit later, when Patrick decided that walking around just wasn’t working at clearing his head so he entered the closest little shop just to look, and lo and behold— it was a pet shop. And then he figured out why he didn’t hear chirps and squeaks and barks, because they were words that he could hear and understand. 

However, he still couldn’t sleep. That was a rule he had for himself— a law of nature, perhaps— that if he wasn’t asleep by midnight, he wasn’t getting any sleep at all. He could toss and turn all he wanted, but he wouldn’t get anywhere with it, so he relented and pulled himself out of bed. Patrick would regret it in the morning, but technically it was already the morning and he sure as hell wasn't regretting it right now, so he considered himself okay for the time being. In reality, he’d probably be knocked out on the couch by noon, so he made himself some coffee just in case. 

Of all the things to do while he was awake in the middle of the night, Patrick chose rethinking his life decisions because he really couldn’t think of anything else while his coffee was brewing. Such things as what would happen if Fall Out Boy wasn’t a thing crossed his mind, but he really didn’t care because it passed the time and the next thing he knew, he was cautiously sipping on a scalding coffee, and from then on he had nothing to do, nothing to think about, so he just sat there, wallowing in his loneliness.

:-:

Pete was, in no way, what someone would call normal— well, if that someone had the mindset that there was such a thing— and it really didn’t bother him at all— okay, maybe a little bit, because he didn’t think people needed his power, even though his power was practically built for other people, and he didn’t get it because there were failsafes that protected him from doing the wrong thing, making the wrong two people fall in love, and his question was why couldn’t some immortal Cupid in heaven wonderland do this job instead of him? Not that he dressed in diapers and carried around a giant pink bow (if he did, he would try for suicide again), but it was still a weight on his shoulders because he could make any two people fall in love, and if it was the wrong two, he could ruin a friendship or worse, ruin a life, and one of the reasons he was in this band was to save lives. And maybe that was why the band took a break, because of the stress. But they were back at it again now, and it had only built up over time because there were fans to please and things to do and people expecting things of him and it wasn’t his best moment when he was curled up on his couch, watching some misty-eyed chick flick that was both funny and sad— somehow— with a box of pre-popped popcorn on his lap— yes, the whole box— that he had put heaps of salt in because he was just feeling salty. And maybe he would dry up and turn into a raisin, but honestly he couldn’t care less. All that mattered was sending himself into an awkward flurry of emotions to try and forget about all the things he had to do, and he was actually succeeding, resulting in something between crying and laughing (god knows what it actually was) and the urge to try and use his magic on the TV because just kiss already.

And in all certainty, Pete was okay with that.

:-:

Joe wasn’t the kind of person to be serious. His voice, like, just didn’t fit, because of this natural aloofness he seemed to be born with. It was a travesty if he even so much as yelled at someone or threw a glare he actually meant— and it had happened a few times, actually, and Patrick freaked out. But he, too, noticed the oddity of his band-mates’ behavior, and was genuinely worried, a serious emotion that wasn’t used to displaying itself on his face, because again, Joe’s voice was a voice meant to accompany a quirked brow and a smartass joke, not a life-or-death, make-it-or-break-it phrase that had the power to stop a heart for a few seconds. Joe was worried about his friends, and being worried about his friends made him worry about his sanity because he didn’t worry—

Joe took a breath, forgetting where he was for a brief moment, before recognizing the weight of his guitar on his lap and the stiff chair below him. He suddenly lost all motivation to practice that day, and put away his guitar after a few successful attempts at playing songs— none of which really entertained him enough to keep practicing. One day off couldn’t hurt, after all. In reality, Joe worried a lot, but he had set this idea of himself as the person he showed others, the aloof, quirked-brow-and-smart-joke kind of guy, but he worried when the band started, when they got their record label, and when things started soaring for them, he was practically drenched in worry. It was like he was relapsing back into worry— something so strange that he never thought he would think about, but he did— and look where it got him. Absolutely nowhere. Well, technically he was now on the internet searching up “things to do when you’re bored alone,” but that wasn’t the point. 

And honestly he could call Pete and debunk this whole thing, but that’s not how Joe functioned. Joe functioned off of coffee and internet memes and— oh, there goes his morning.

And perhaps something bigger was amiss than Joe had originally thought.


	2. "Let's Go To Five Guys" and other hit songs by Fall Out Boy

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> "Yeah, Five Guys sounds good"
> 
> Patrick explored the big city of Atlanta and goes to the World Of Coke.
> 
> He's not a drug addict I swear.

Patrick wanted to go back to sleep, he really did, but there was just something about the sun that made it rise at such an angle so it seemed to burn his eyes. Yes, it could be said that Patrick was having a wonderful afternoon, waking up after a sleepless night followed by a healthy eight hours of sleep, but of course he was still tired, and he needed more coffee or else he would die (he could swear to that). But he also remembered that he was, in fact, in a hotel room, and he had to get back on the tour bus after eating dinner— preferably with the band— because they had to continue the Save Rock-And-Roll tour. So, reluctantly, he rolled himself off of the couch, blanket stolen from the bed and all. In all honesty, Patrick wasn’t really in the mood to move, much less get off the couch, but he did so anyway, because people expected things of him. And that was really his only motivation, he realized; he only did things because it helped other people. He shook his head in a visible attempt to clear it, but only managed to put it on another path.

He used to have a crush on Pete. Well, he still did, but pining after his bandmate was not the smartest thing to do, and he was a sensible, functioning adult, so he avoided Pete. But Patrick would be on a tour bus with him and the band for a few more months, which he was dreading because one, he wouldn’t be able to shower as often, and two, he’d be around Pete, which wouldn’t help him not fall completely in love with him because damn. Patrick got that giddy feeling whenever he entered the room, or when they touched. It bugged him, he wanted it gone. He didn’t want to be in love with him. What if they didn’t work out? Then there would be tension, and the band could break up. Patrick didn’t want to give up his position as the therapist pumping through the speakers. His thoughts ran unfinished and choppy with stress, and frustration was putting heat behind his eyes and in the back of his throat because he cried when he was frustrated and—

He needed to stop thinking. He liked it better when the place had sound. And it would have sound if it were the tour bus, because there was never a still moment there. At the very least, there was the rumbling of the engine to keep him company, but the air conditioner in the hotel room just made him feel more depressed. Patrick sighed and pulled on his heavy black boots and tied the laces. He needed to take a walk.

They had stopped in Atlanta, which was on the larger end of the cities he had been to. The hotel they stopped at— a Marriott, specifically— disappeared behind a skyscraper as he traveled to the heart of the city. He was glad to be away from the hotel. It wasn’t homey; instead, it was clean-cut and smelled of a sharp scent of simple cleanness that stung his nose. Everything felt cold, like it had just been washed— and it probably had been, now that he thought about it. The air conditioners were so loud he couldn’t sleep, and simply sleeping in a building with many other people in it unnerved him. Hence his life in the suburbs extremely close to Chicago. Close enough to hear the sounds of the city, far enough away to not go deaf. Speaking of going deaf, he might have right then and there because of the noise of people milling about. Minding your own business was surprisingly a loud thing, he realized. People were flitting in and out of buildings like flies that only had a day to live, women forcing their boyfriends to carry their bags, businessmen looking stressed with their phone to their ear, and generally everyone had a place to be. Patrick felt left out until he saw a jogger running laps around the square, and a family of four looking at a map and struggling to decide where to go next. That comforted him. Some of the people he saw, it was hard to tell if they knew where they were going or not. Maybe they were walking along a practiced path— or on the contrary, exploring new territory, like him. Patrick wasn’t a people-watcher, he wouldn’t know.

He noticed that he got very few stares, and he wondered why. He was famous, he knew that much, so he guessed the city of Atlanta just wasn’t as pop-punk as he made it out to be. A reasonable explanation, but not the right one. Patrick was, in fact, very famous in this city, but as he subconsciously looked through the mirrors of a miscellaneous small business, he realized he wasn’t wearing his hat, and looked very much unlike himself without it, not to mention he just happened to be wearing all black, and the bright sun reflected off of his sunglasses that he put on due to the bright day. He never really dressed like this on a normal day, he thought, imagining his normal clothes on a normal day. But today, of course, wasn’t normal, because Patrick Stump did not usually take hours just thinking, and he was positive it was unhealthy with the amount of times he found himself drifting off. 

Taking a walk really didn’t help. For one, being out in public gave him a headache due to all the thoughts he could hear. The fresh air was nice, though, and he hadn’t even seen all the sights yet— or any at all— so he continued his trek. 

Patrick soon realized that the city was far too big to just find a sign to direct him where to go, so he had to resort to Google Maps and a Google search of “places to see and go to in Atlanta,” which, in turn, caused him to walk while looking at his phone, something he generally didn’t like to do. But, he ended up at Hard Rock Cafe for lunch, where he ordered a burger and fries. He only ate half the burger, and a few of the fries, and he would deny being anorexic because in America, portion sizes are massive, so back off. He was pleasantly surprised to see memorabilia of some of his favorite artists on the wall; there were actually too many to remember at this point. But what surprised him the most was a copy of “Evening Out With Your Girlfriend,” his band’s first ever studio album, framed and on the wall with a plaque below it. This place was the place he was really expecting to get recognized, and one girl came up to him asking for a picture with him by the framed album, but nothing really else. Patrick made sure to take a picture on his phone as well, along with a picture of the framed album. Later, when he left the restaurant, he posted the picture of the framed album on his Instagram. 

At this point, it was about three fifteen, so he could probably go to one cool place before the band met up for dinner. It was hard to choose, with the crazy amount of cool attractions just waiting for him, but after scrolling through his Google search results, he started walking towards the World of Coca-Cola. He’d never been to a place like it before, and once he paid for his ticket and went through security, he didn’t really know why. Pops of colors lined the walls like bubbles made of paint had splattered there, and there were giant Coke bottles covered in decorations right by the entrance. There was a checkout counter to his right that was giving all the visitors a bottle of Coke. He joined the line, which then flowed to a door with a sign next to it saying “TOUR STARTS HERE” in big letters. He picked up the bottle, cold in his hands, and followed the stranger in front of him to the rather small room. In this room, there was a glass case with old Coca-Cola products and advertisements in it, and it was actually really cool. His headache from being around people quieted down because of the visitors being genuinely interested in the topic and Patrick was just glad there weren’t any screaming babies nearby. 

He traveled through the museum, taking pictures at the tasting room with fans and sometimes just himself, and at the gift shop of things he wanted but really didn’t need. He also took a picture with the giant polar bear. Upon exiting the building, Patrick checked the time to see that it was now six forty-five, so he sent a text to the band group chat (which was there for situations like this). “We going for dinner soon?” It read. “There’s this place called Five Guys down the road from the hotel. It’s a burger place.” He pocketed his phone and walked toward the hotel to be in the general area when they went out, because he really didn’t need anything else from his room and he didn’t want to be over by Central Park if they were meeting closer to where they were staying. Patrick’s phone buzzed in his pocket— he couldn’t hear the ding because the noise around him had raised itself with a vigor— and he unlocked it to see what it was: a text from Joe.

“Yeah, Five Guys sounds good”

It was just what Patrick expected from Joe, with the lack of punctuation at the end and his conciseness. Joe tended to lead the band in terms of social events, and Pete and Patrick led the band everywhere else, Pete taking a lot of leadership during concerts, but when they played, Patrick seemed to have the world in his hands. Soon, Patrick was standing in front of the Five Guys, contemplating going in. He shook his head. This overthinking thing was really squeezing its way into his life and he didn’t really want it there. He missed the days where he had time to his mind and didn’t think about stressful and frustrating things. Now, it was all he could think about. He steeled himself, though, and clenched his jaw as he opened the door, finding the rest of the band at a table in the back. Andy was poking at his salad, respectfully waiting for everyone else to get food. Patrick realized how hungry he was, and ordered a bacon burger, only planning to eat half of it because the portion sizes were bound to be monstrous. 

Now came the part he was dreading: social interaction. With Pete, specifically. He couldn’t just stay quiet the whole time, and the thought irked him until someone started the conversation. It was Pete. 

“I noticed you weren’t in your room earlier, were you out exploring? It’s been a while since we’ve been here,” Pete said, and Patrick drifted away into his sea of thoughts, barely able to answer before he was completely gone. 

“Yeah,” he mumbled, “I had lunch, went to the world of Coke.” And then, of course, Patrick was caught in a net in a sea of thoughts and he just hoped the fisherman wouldn’t throw him back in. His face was in his hands, elbows on the table and he was facing down— the perfect position for depressing thoughts. For one: how was Pete so good at just… talking? It took Patrick a good couple of hours to think of ways to start conversation and then he comes up and just smoothly says “hey, how’ve you been?” and then suddenly everyone likes him. Patrick likes him, too. He was also envious of the way Pete could just write lyrics. Granted, Patrick can definitely write, but Pete does it so much better, in his eyes. Pete was beautiful—

Wait, wait, no. Patrick can’t fall for Pete. Not again. He didn’t want mountains of stress on his shoulders because bad things can happen and he doesn’t want those bad things to happen. That’s a big no-no. 

:-:

Pete stared at Patrick in the Five Guys. He thought Patrick was cute— adorable even. And no matter how much Patrick seemed to need him in the moment, he couldn’t bring himself to comfort him or even give him a hand. It was Pete’s main flaw. He’d say he’d do something, but never would, even in terms of his self goals. The whole joining a band thing seemed to happen on a whim but every movement he made, every time he plucked a string on his bass, every word he said, it was always a promise left unfulfilled.

But Pete had to stop thinking so much, he had a conversation to attend to. And so he did.


	3. So I Guess I'm Like Cupid, Then

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A lil bit of Pete's past, with just a dash of angst and some sexual tension. Patrick gets a little depressing but I don't really know what else to put here. *shrugs*

_“There’s something I have to tell you, Pete.”_

  _A small young boy stared up at his dad. “What?”_

  _The father donned a serious expression, a severe expression. “There’s a… thing… that runs in my family, it’s passed from person to person, father to son, mother to daughter, and you have this thing. It’s right there,” the father broke his serious expression, smiling widely as he poked his son’s chest, right over his heart._

  _“And what is this thing?” Pete asked, his small voice curious._

  _“Well, I think it’s pretty cool,” the man answered, quirking an eyebrow. “You can make people fall in love. So they like, kiss and stuff.”_

  _“Ah! Ewwww!” Pete cried, giggling as his dad picked him up and swung him around. Pete eventually calmed down though, and asked his father, “So like, I’m Cupid?”_

  _“Yeah, I guess you are, Mr. Cupid.”_

 (:)

 Patrick heard it. Patrick heard everything. But he thought it was cute. But he also knew something more about Pete. Pete could make any two people fall in love. Pete was Mr. Cupid. He lifted his face from his hands and smiled giddily before remembering he was in a restaurant and his food was getting cold and people were looking at him, specifically Pete because Pete knew something was off about Patrick and this just proved it. He bit into his bacon burger and savored the crunch. He wiped his mouth afterwards, and dinner conversation ensued.

 “So, are you guys excited for the shows we’ll be playing?” Patrick asked, mouth half full. Pete thought it was adorable, Patrick took note. This went on for a while, actually; Pete would compliment Patrick in his head (too nervous to say it out loud, perhaps?) and Patrick would always know. It was such a strange and invasive thing, having someone’s thoughts bubble in his head, and he felt like he was intruding. But he shook it off and lived with it. He promised himself not to judge people based on what they thought, because they had a right to keep those things private. But still, he felt bad about it, because he knew Pete had those thoughts to himself, and was allowed to think whatever he wanted without his privacy being invaded, yet Patrick was hearing his thoughts and the only thing he could do about it was feel bad, which made him feel worse.

 It seemed like forever until dinner was over, and Patrick could go back to his room and avoid social interaction. But alas, when they started going to their separate rooms in the hotel, Pete pulled him to the side. He was sweating bullets. Did Pete know about his ability? Was Pete mad at him for invading his privacy? Did Pete hate him? Patrick shuddered, shaking off the thought and looking up at Pete, now in the real world instead of his thoughts. Pete also seemed nervous, because Patrick could hear his breaths— in and out, in and out— in this heaving pattern, as if he were fighting off panic. His eyes were darting back and forth, dark pools swimming with nerves. But Patrick thought Pete’s eyes were beautiful. Even in their panicked state. Pete swallowed the lump in his throat— Patrick noticed way too quickly how his Adam’s Apple bobbed up and down— and finally spoke.

 “What is _wrong_ with you?”

 Patrick froze, and seconds turned into days. His breath became like Pete’s: heaving breaths, in and out, in and out. The blood in his veins turned into solid ice. It was _bad_ , was what Patrick would say in the future, recalling the moment as just a fragment of his life, but now? He was absolutely terrified. The tension built up as Pete’s eyes became hurricanes of panic, twisting faster than before. Patrick could hear trails of curses flowing from Pete’s head, and knew that at least one of them had done something wrong. There was a long term of silence, and Patrick’s face held a shocked expression, on the brink of tears but not really wanting to show it.

 Pete looked like he had just kicked a puppy, with the way his face was contorted in a grimace. Patrick didn’t like being the kicked puppy, and he would’ve said something, but his social anxiety returned from the depths in which it had buried itself in high school. It reared its ugly head, but the only sound it made was silence.

 “I— I’m sorry. That came out weird. But, like, you’ve been acting strange lately, and I want to know why. I didn’t mean it like _that_ , there’s absolutely nothing wrong with you— hell, you’re perfect— and like I wanna know what’s wrong because like I _care_ and stuff and— and—“ Pete’s face softened, consoling Patrick, trying to get the tears to recede from the corners of his eyes. Patrick’s eyes were wide with shock and surprise and some unnamed emotion that couldn’t ever be expressed in words. Pete grinned— this big, lopsided smile that showed all his teeth and was just downright adorable to him.

 “You’re worried about me?” Patrick asked incredulously, as if he never really expected anyone to care, because he could read minds and human beings weren’t the nicest species out there. They also weren’t the worst, because birds took the cake there, but people just generally hated him and he actually knew why: his weight, his height, and his looks in general.

 “Yeah, man, is that even a question?”

 Patrick’s head was in a flurry, to the point of where he couldn’t think because his thoughts were going so fast. For one: Pete cared, for two: Pete _cared._ And for three: Patrick wanted to say Pete cared again but he didn’t, because well, he just _didn’t_. It was one of those things where he didn’t know why he did it, but maybe it was just social anxiety again.

 Pete was nice to him and Pete cared. Pete thought he was cute and adorable but he didn’t think Pete actually loved him.

 But Patrick was okay with that. 


	4. Pete's Not Okay (He Promises)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> 1\. Pete Wentz is not okay  
> 2\. Pre-popped popcorn cuddles  
> 3\. Song lyrics  
> 4\. So many song lyrics  
> 5\. The tRUUUUUTHHHHH HURTS WORSEEEEE  
> 6\. THAN ANYTHINGGGGGG  
> 7\. I COULD  
> 8\. BRING  
> 9\. MY  
> 10\. SELF  
> 11\. TO DO  
> 12\. TO YOUUUUUUU  
> 13\. Everybody admits to being not heterosexual

Pete wasn’t okay with the fact that his power basically connected him with Patrick. Like, if they got too emotionally far apart, hell would strike and time would stop, as if life was patting him hard on the back and saying  _ “go get em’!”  _ just like an overzealous father. And that overzealous father was also an overzealous  _ Asian  _ father, with the fact that it wouldn’t let him get too far away from Patrick. And maybe that was why he cried at chick flicks with the whole box of pre-popped popcorn on his lap, questioning his existence and wallowing in whatever emotion he wallowed in because he didn’t know what it was called. Because maybe, just maybe, Pete could forget about this telltale pressure he’d put on himself. 

Pete both loved Patrick and didn’t love Patrick. Half of him was just a friend— a really hot friend— and the other half was  _ marry me right now _ . That was Pete’s dilemma. He really didn’t know what to do with all of these thoughts and feelings rushing around in his head. But Pete was brought back into real-life by Patrick lightly pulling his arm. There was a small smile on his face, and his eyes crinkled at the edges and it was absolutely adorable.

“I’m not really ready to tell you, yet, but I can show you  _ part  _ of it,” his voice was adorable, his eyes were adorable,  _ he  _ was adorable, and something clicked for Pete in that very moment. He didn’t show it, though, and he doubted he ever would. Patrick pulled him to Patrick’s room with a light hand, and opened the door with the hotel keycard to reveal a very well kept hotel room. Perhaps room service had cleaned it. The singer looked up at the window. “Well, that’s convenient,” he muttered, almost annoyed. Pete followed his gaze to a blue jay.  _ What does a blue jay have to do with anything?  _ Pete wondered. His question was answered, though, when the bird chirped at Patrick.

“Ugh, I am regretting all of this because of  _ you, _ and I don’t even know your  _ name— _ “ Pete was caught off guard by this interaction. Patrick? Speaking to an animal? He seemed to give up on whatever the conversation was, and shooed the bird away, chirping in such a way that Pete was sure it was cursing. This whole thing was very new and surprising to him, and Pete was contemplating telling Patrick he had Cupid powers but there was the fact that this talking to animals thing was only  _ part  _ of what Patrick could do, and that scared Pete. Why would Patrick hide it? Was it so bad it would change Pete’s view of him? Pete highly doubted that. Patrick smiled warmly, as if he had read his thoughts. As if he was saying  _ there’s absolutely nothing to worry about _ , and maybe Patrick was just trying to convince himself of that. Nevertheless, the two found themselves wrapped in each other, cuddled up on the couch with a box of pre-popped popcorn, watching a romantic comedy that largely frustrated Pete.

And oh, did Pete say he wouldn’t show his love for Patrick? That was a lie.

:-:

Andy always made sure he got a good amount of sleep— it was the very least he could do for his healthy lifestyle when he traveled— but today, it just seemed like life was throwing him the middle finger and he hated when it did that. But he, too, noticed both Pete  _ and  _ Patrick acting strange across the board and that was the reason he was tossing and turning. Atlanta was a beautiful city, but looking out the window of the hotel window was a little disconcerting to him. The dark was a little too dark, and the light was also a little too dark and that might’ve been because it was the middle of the night, but Andy was still nervous. He was  _ not  _ scared of the dark, and that was  _ not  _ the reason he was going over to Joe’s room. But Andy knew for a fact Joe would be awake— he was just the kind of person to not got enough sleep and live off of coffee.

But when he passed by the two rooms in between his and Joe’s, he was surprised to see Patrick’s door wide open. Deciding to investigate further, Andy saw both Pete and Patrick huddled on the couch under a blanket watching chick flicks while eating from a large box of pre-popped popcorn and it was already halfway empty. The two were so close together it was almost intimate, so he simply closed the door and left.

:-:

_ The truth hurts worse than anything I could bring myself to do to you. _

Patrick didn’t know why he was thinking of old song lyrics, but he was and they really fit his situation at the moment. He just thought of them while looking up at Pete and he was pretty sure he said the words out loud, but if he did they were barely a whisper and Pete wouldn’t hear them. He closed his eyes because he was tired— even though he had slept until noon— and it was late, about nine. Pete inched his hand closer to Patrick’s, eventually falling on top of his and enveloping it in a warmth that wasn’t too warm but still made him feel good.

_ “Do you remember the way I held your hand under the lamppost and ran home?”  _ Pete whispered back to Patrick. Patrick broke out into a giddy grin, opening his eyes just to stare at Pete. He stared back with a fog in his eyes that made them look even more beautiful in the dim light. Yeah. They were both  _ very  _ gay.

_ “This way so many times, I could close my eyes,”  _ Patrick whispered back, closing his eyes and snuggling into Pete. Pete was comfortable. He was pulled in a way towards Patrick, like this power of Love he had was compelling him to move closer, to make a move, to just  _ do something _ . But Pete was content, and did nothing more than hum in satisfaction. They soon fell asleep, the television now only white noise.

_ The truth hurts worse than anything I could bring myself to do to you. _

:-:

Patrick slept soundly-- hushed voices and light footsteps couldn’t wake him-- but when he did wake up, he found that he was in his hotel bed, wrapped up in a blanket with his shoulders exposed. He had fallen asleep before Pete, so he assumed that Pete carried him to bed, which was an overall sweet thing to do, but Patrick also considered the fact that in the course of a few hours, their friendship had changed and was currently sitting on the blurred line between  _ friendship  _ and  _ relationship _ , which made Patrick uncomfortable, because he liked to put labels on things and he liked to  _ know _ , and everything had gotten too real in too little time. He didn’t like it when things went fast like that. He grudgingly lifted himself from the comfortable bed and changed his clothes, checking his phone to see that it was the next morning— their Atlanta show was today and they’d have one more night before leaving, so Patrick decided to take another day out and perhaps visit Central Park. For a moment he realized that he was glad for Pete, in such a way that erased the need for dating apps he couldn’t really trust, and without a second thought, texted him to meet Patrick at Central Park at about eleven-thirty. Patrick pocketed his phone and simply sat on his couch, reading through the mixed up lyrics Pete had sent him. It was always Patrick’s job to sort through them and make something legible out of Pete’s jumbled words. Tour wasn’t really the  _ best  _ possible time to write lyrics, but he did anyway. There were lots of lyrics about cityscapes and romance, and Patrick pondered if they actually meant anything. They probably did, but Pete was too cryptic for Patrick to figure out, so  _ There’s a room in a hotel in New York City, that shares our fate and deserves our pity  _ stared back at him from the ever-bright screen. The eMail looked like a bad translation from a jumbled mess of a notebook sheet that probably had lines connecting certain lyrics and clumps of words in some semblance of a song, which was likely why the neat rows were grouped and labeled. Pete had the mercy to take a picture of said notebook page, to Patrick’s relief. The lyrics were hardly written on the lines at all-- instead, they were mixed up and jumbled around the page, just like Patrick had expected. Pete’s notebook page of lyrics was also littered with lines connecting related lyrics, and clumps of words were organized into a song.

Without Patrick’s knowledge, eleven came and went, and at eleven-fifteen, he had realized he should have left his room already. He quickly laced up his boots, grabbed his coat, and threw on the nearest hat-- a baseball cap. He felt this surge of emotion, something telling him to panic because he’d be late in meeting Pete at Central Park and making Pete wait was something Patrick really didn’t want to do, and he was only just starting to figure out why. Patrick also realized he hadn’t taken a run since they had stopped, so he fell into a light jog on his way to the park. The park was crowded, as he expected, and he had a hard time finding Pete, so he whipped out his ever-handy phone and called him. His head was throbbing and he’d have a migraine during the interview, but he brought this upon himself, and plus— Pete would be there.

“Hey, Pete?” he asked, still moving around the park. His eyes fell upon the crowd, and in the center of it all was a mostly clear area where jets of water were shooting out of the ground. There were a few people who were soaking themselves in the cold water, but only a few-- maybe one or two-- because of the colder weather. Around the central area, there were benches, and around that were stairsteps of rock that served as larger seating. The place really was beautiful, a main gathering place for families on vacation, or the working man on break. There were lots of people trying to have some social time before lunch, when they’d have to spend their time eating instead of exploring. Coincidentally, that was the rush Patrick and Pete were a part of at the moment. “Where are you?” Patrick asked through the phone, weaving his way through people who didn’t recognize him.

“I’m on one of the inner benches, on the side by the CNN tower. Where’ve you been?” Pete replied and asked, his voice low and husky, but hard to hear over the chatter of the crowd. Patrick continued weaving through the crowd, now stopping at intervals to stand on his tiptoes to look at where the CNN tower was.

“I was looking at some of your lyrics and trying to make something out of it,” Patrick explained, finally catching sight of his best friend who wasn’t really his best friend anymore. Pete was more of a “friend with benefits,” even though Patrick really didn’t want to call it that. But Patrick also noticed that to him, the two were much more than that: Pete made his head quiet again; he blocked out everything else. Patrick had grown so accustomed to the overwhelming noise in his head that the sudden silence was an oddity. As soon as he found Pete’s caramel eyes, he was underwater, and everything was muffled and quiet. This was a surprise to him; another new thing that he didn’t know about before and was pleasantly surprised to find hiding in the inky black depths of himself. His ears were still barraged with cacophonous noise, but his head was silent and focused. Patrick smiled and waved at Pete, and even if Pete didn’t see him, he walked toward him and hung up the phone, sitting himself down next to the bassist.

And then, of course, came the silence where neither of them really knew what to talk about. Central Park was plenty loud, but no words were spoken between the two of them, until Pete took the reins.

“It’s really nice out today,” he said. Patrick didn’t respond, because Patrick didn’t know  _ how  _ to respond. “Kind of loud, but really nice,” Pete tried again, but Patrick was still silent. Pete sent a pointed look toward Patrick, who’s face was fairly blank. Patrick was thinking. What did Pete have to do with his ability to read minds? Why was everything suddenly quiet when he was around? It made no sense to him. Pete sighed, thinking of one more conversation starter to use before resorting to waving his hand in front of Patrick’s face. “So what lyrics were you thinking could make a song?” The words barely penetrated through Patrick’s cloud of thought, but he heard them and acknowledged them and responded to them. He looked up.

“I liked the ‘hotel in New York City’ line. I paired it with ‘promises are made if you just hold on’ and I filled in the gaps…” Patrick paused, before turning on his phone and pulling up a document. “Here. This is what I have so far. It just needs a melody, but I have no idea what it should be.” Pete looked at his phone, reading  _ There’s a room in a hotel in New York City, that shares our fate and deserves our pity. I don’t want to remember it all, but promises are made if you just hold on, hold on. _

“I like that,” Pete said, nodding.

“I think it should be the end of a verse, leading into the chorus. That’s what it looks like to me, at least,” Patrick suggested, the two hovering over the phone and typing things in. He wanted to laugh at the irony of it; he had invited Pete out to Central Park to hang out, maybe wander the city, and the two just ended up working again. It was plenty of fun, though, because they had the best jobs in the world: music.


	5. Smells Like The Only Nirvana Song You Know

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> If this writing puts a red underline under the name Brendon one more time...
> 
> Oh look, it did it again.
> 
> Alright! I wrote a concert scene! The boys do a wonderful rendition of Smells Like Teen Spirit and Brendon makes a cameo singing part of 20 Dollar Nose Bleed...

Right before their concert, Fall Out Boy had an interview with some local magazine, so they had to go to a small studio a few blocks from where they were staying. Being in the city, of course, they walked. Mike, their bus driver, would be transporting the equipment to the venue. The four were seated on a comfortable couch while a slim lady with bleached-blonde hair asked them increasingly personal questions, and Patrick would calmly change the subject in such a subtle way so that no one really questioned it. That was how almost all of their interviews went, anyway, because they had an extremely involved fanbase and the media was not a nice place to be exposed.

“So, you’ve been staying in Atlanta for a few days, how’s it been treating you?” she asked, and Patrick wondered for a second how she knew that. He shifted in his seat.

“It’s been really nice,” Pete said, leaving much to be imagined.

“I’ve actually walked around Central Park-- the crowds are big but the attractions are rather…” Patrick trailed off, searching for the right word.

“Interesting?” Pete filled in.

“Yeah,” he said, “that.” Patrick smiled at Pete thankfully.

The interviewer laughed, the sound of chiming bells that would’ve triggered his headache if Pete wasn’t there. “Are y’all excited for the concert?” she asked, her southern accent not too obvious despite her use of blatantly southern words. This time, Joe answered.

“Well yeah, of course we are. We’re excited for every concert. It’s like… this big welcoming family that also screams at you-- but that’s just because they love you,” he said, waving his hand in nonchalance and smiling this big wide smile.

“So, are you doing anything special for the concert here? To, like, make it memorable and unique?” the lady asked, and Patrick thought about it. He could hear the rest of the band thinking about it, too. Pete was thinking about how Brendon was going to prank them-- Patrick didn’t know that before, certainly-- and that he should keep it a secret for the surprise. No matter what the prank was, if Brendon was there, it would be hilarious, no doubt, even if it wasn’t a surprise. Joe was thinking of playing a cover of “Smells Like Teen Spirit,” because it was a true classic. Andy was just confused on whether or not they were going to do anything special at all.

“Well,” Patrick said, trying to be vague, “It’s going to be a surprise. Who knows what will happen, you know?” Pete wondered if Patrick’s words were in response to his thoughts or if it was just a coincidence.

:-:

After the interview, the band went to do sound check at the venue-- Fox Theatre, specifically-- and Joe finally suggested that they play “Smells Like Teen Spirit.”

“What do you think?” Joe asked after presenting his idea.

“Well, I agree with you. I think we should play it because it’s like, a classic, man,” Pete said, nodding his head and smiling a half smile that almost burned Patrick because it made Pete look so hot. Figuratively, of course.

“It depends on whether or not we all have it memorized,” Patrick said, sensibly, because if they didn’t all have it memorized, they would end up _saying_ they’d play “Smells Like Teen Spirit,” but in reality, it would just end up as a heaping disaster and Fall Out Boy would disappoint the fans. A majority of them, anyway. They also had their own setlist they had to follow, or they would disappoint the fans again, _and_ they’d be in a time crunch because they only had so much time on stage.

They were currently in the lounge, discussing whether or not they’d play “Smells Like Teen Spirit,” but they were also talking about what they would say. Pete was the one who usually talked to the crowd, so most of the pressure was on him, and Patrick could feel it too. But Patrick knew that Pete always knew what to say.

“Pete, it’ll be fine,” Patrick said after Pete got particularly worried. Pete smiled at him, as if his words were all it took to make him feel better.

“Yeah, I guess I’ll just make it happen, then. Just like I always do,” Pete said, his eyes locked onto Patrick.

Pete always had this way of making things work, even when the whole world was against him. And that was one of the many things Patrick loved about Pete.

<|>

Patrick loved the stage, even if it meant wearing this stuffy leather jacket and skinny jeans that were one size too small. The roaring crowd was enough motivation for him, and the feeling was amplified by Pete playing his bass right next to him. So close, in fact, the Patrick could hear the metallic rumbling of the strings that the pickups didn’t send to the amps and it made the whole experience ten times better.

When they finished playing “The Phoenix,” Pete went up to his microphone and Patrick smiled in pure happiness because he loved hearing Pete’s voice talking to so many people at once. Pete was very good with people, while Patrick was still as awkward as he was in middle school.

“How are you guys doing Atlanta?” Pete essentially yelled, even though his voice was amplified by the mic. The crowd screamed, and Patrick remembered what Joe said during the interview and laughed. He heard a few _“awwwww”_ s, but his main focus was how Pete smiled at him. Pete nodded at the crowd.

“You know, we’ve been staying here for a few days, and wow-- you guys, this city is _nice_ ,” Pete said, leaning onto the mic stand as he spoke. The crowd roared louder. “Like, have any of you been to Central Park?” he asked, and the crowd roared even louder. “Yeah?”

“Okay, so there’s a song we’ve agreed to play, and it’s _very_ special. It’s, like, a classic, man,” Pete stated, quoting himself from earlier and making Patrick laugh a small laugh. Pete started to play the intro to “Smells Like Teen Spirit” and the crowd reacted strongly, screaming like there was no tomorrow, or like they didn’t want this golden experience to end. Patrick didn’t want it to end, either.

And once again, Patrick lost himself in the music, the way the melodies ebbed and flowed, and the way Pete sang backup right next to him.

:-:

Halfway through the concert, it was on their setlist to play “20 Dollar Nosebleed,” and of course, that meant the dignified singer of Panic! At The Disco would be singing alongside Patrick. He felt severely outclassed by the younger singer, but Patrick just focused on singing.

His focus was broken, however, when the one and only Brendon Urie trotted onto the stage, a Taco Bell burrito in his hand. He was calmly eating as if he were in his dining room. Or living room, because it wouldn’t surprise Patrick if Brendon only ate in his living room (or den, whatever he called it). Patrick had trouble singing through his laughter, and at one point, just stopped singing while he laughed.

Brendon conquered the stage as if he were born there, and that was okay with Patrick because he had gotten to have the stage to himself for the majority of the tour. Brendon was just the kind of guy who demanded people’s attention without even trying. He hopped around the stage, strutting like a supermodel with his mic in his hand, and at one point he backflipped, but these were all normal things Brendon did at his own concerts, so Patrick wasn’t concerned in the least. Not only was Brendon an exhibitionist, but he was tall-- something the entirety of Fall Out Boy were not. Brendon was tall, a bisexual everyone-magnet, and simply demanded attention. Patrick didn’t hold a candle to that. He felt bad to think that he felt so much better when Brendon left the stage.

But he shook it off and continued. That was what he always did.


	6. Casey Heatherly

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Be pREPARED TO MEET YOUR DOOM
> 
> No, you're actually meeting my (oh so very dynamic... not) villain,
> 
> THIS IS THE ORIGINAL MALE CHARACTER I PUT IN THE CAST
> 
> THEY EXIST
> 
> Oh and the girl who hit someone in the face with her scarf during a FOB concert (mentioned in the story)? Yep. That was me.

The band had a blast at that concert, so it sucked when they had to say goodbye to the fans. Patrick signed things and took pictures and gave hugs, as did Pete, Joe, and Andy. But, they had to say goodbye to that, too, because they had to be in Tampa by the next day. Their driver, Max, ushered them into the bus, where all of their things were neatly packed and left on their bunks. They were required to pack their things before they went on. 

Patrick remembered his own first concert— the first one he had been to, cheering in the audience and screaming his lungs out— it was a Green Day concert. He danced along with the opening bands, holding onto his prized fedora so it wouldn’t fall, and when the main band finally came up, there was this wave of energy that sparked among the crowd. It was surreal. That was the day that Patrick Stump knew what he wanted to do for a living. It became his dream to be in a band. The ironic thing, though, was that he was specialized in drums; he would’ve never expected to sing in front of thousands of people, especially when it wasn’t what he was best at. He had gone home tired, sweaty, sore, worn-out, and with his ears ringing, but it was the best day of his life at the time.

And when he had joined Fall Out Boy, he kept beating his other best days and that was all because of the fans. Each concert was better than the last, and in the end, he would do it all again, because the band was so much more than that— they were his best friends. And not only was he doing what he loved, but their music was what kept people going because the kids who listened to Pete’s rambling weren’t alright, and the band made them feel alright again.

There were too many things Patrick loved about his job. Pete was one of them.

:-:

Everything went by way too fast. Even though they had basically the same set list for each venue, there were little things that made each show special. In Atlanta, the biggest one was them playing “Smells Like Teen Spirit”; but in New York City, Patrick remembered seeing one kid in a white sweatshirt getting really pumped up for the opening band. There was one time where a girl accidentally hit the person behind her with her scarf. Patrick liked remembering the little things— looking into the crowd to find something interesting and memorable that he could share with a fan. He remembered during “My Songs Know What You Did In The Dark” that all the fans would raise their fists with the drum beat. He remembered the lady who caught the pick Pete threw into the crowd. Patrick liked remembering these things because it made him feel more connected with the fans, this group of people that idolized this little awkward Chicago band. In fact, one of the reasons Patrick loved to tour was so society wouldn’t see the band as just the sounds they made, but instead for the people behind the music and the songs and the words that made the awkward little Chicago band. It seemed like only minutes when they were on that bus, and seconds when they were playing on stage. It was all such a short time in comparison to his whole life. It was too short of a time between when they played the first song and when they played the last, and they would promise with all their hearts to play in that city again.

Patrick stretched himself out in his rather small bunk. He’d be sleeping there until they could book a hotel for a few days and splurge before the concert. It was around midnight, but Patrick didn’t really know that because he couldn’t find a clock that wasn’t his phone. He could see the moon out of his window, though, and he wanted to write some lyrics. Usually Pete would write the lyrics, because that was what he was good at, but Patrick also had some experience with lyric-writing, all thanks to his solo album  _ Soul Punk _ . And perhaps he just wanted to write about Pete with entire stanzas of imagery, but Pete would never know if he never told him. Patrick would just change all the “he”s to “she”s and no one would give it a second glance.

From what Pete had sent him earlier, the mood of the album would be a more pop style, something the band never really did but there was no harm in experimenting. So Patrick finally turned on his phone and started typing like it was the thing he was born to do.

:-:

Pete hadn’t actually made people fall in love in years. The last time he did it was before the band got big, because now, in 2013, he couldn’t just sneak around to find a cute couple and no one really asked for his blessing anymore because no one really  _ knew _ . It made him feel useless and debilitated, like a limb that wouldn’t work and everyone just had to drag him around like a deadweight. But of course, then there was Patrick. Patrick didn’t treat him like a deadweight, and perhaps Pete wouldn’t admit it; he was completely smitten with Patrick. And Pete was completely capable of making Patrick fall in love with him… but that was just  _ wrong _ . He couldn’t just make someone fall in love with him— with other people, he’d see them happy with each other and made sure they stayed that way, no harm done, but with him, he didn’t even know how Patrick felt about him and it all just stressed him out. He curled in on himself in the uncomfortable bunk, not bothering to talk to other people. Pete was never a really social butterfly. He was more of a socially awkward caterpillar that had cocooned itself and cut itself off from the world and would probably become somewhat social, but for now he would just keep to himself like he always did. He didn’t believe he’d ever become more social, but people didn’t believe that because he loved the stage and spoke in front of crowds. Sure, he could speak in front of a group, but a single person? No siree.

So Pete just laid there, his curtain closed and his bunk engulfed with a darkness that unnerved him but also comforted him at the same time. It surprised him how long he could go unoccupied without going insane. He didn’t know how long he stayed there, thinking, but eventually he was bathed in light again, met with an aloof face that could only be characterized by the name Joe Trohman.

“You ready to get creamed in  _ Super Smash Bros _ ?” He asked, not really presenting the question of whether Pete wanted to play at all. However, Pete needed something to occupy him before his thoughts took him over, so he nodded and stretched out his legs.

:-:  **(NOTE: I sent this to my language arts teacher a while back, this is as far as she got. From here on out is unedited territory.)**

In both the grand scheme of things and Patrick’s mind, tour flew past far too quickly. In reality, the whole tour took about two or three months, but it felt like simple weeks to the lead singer. Patrick got the same feeling he got when he stepped off of a trampoline when he stepped off the tour bus, that feeling like he could still fly even when he had lost his wings. And he saw a crowded venue in his head, not his small suburban Chicago house, and he felt the energy to go and hop around on stage, not watch television and work in the studio. But, alas, here he was, at home, still standing in his driveway as the tour bus went around to drop off the rest of the band at their own homes. He had plenty of memories from the tour, though, memories of him singing his heart out with Pete at his side, or just inviting him to watch movies and TV shows in his hotel room. He sighed, and pulled his large suitcase and guitar case into the house, stopping and digging into his suitcase to find his house keys and unlock the door.

He was met with cool air as soon as he opened the door, and when Patrick realized that his AC was on for almost three months without him being there, he cursed under his breath. There was nothing he could do about it now, though, so he pushed the thought aside and lugged his suitcase and guitar into his room to unpack them. His house was only one floor, so he thankfully didn’t have to climb any stairs with his heavy load. He had to put it all on the floor to open his bedroom door, then picked it up again, just to lay his suitcase on the floor and lean the guitar on his wall.

As he was putting all of his things away, he thought about what he would do now that the tour was over. His life had just gone from over-the-top excitement to home alone with nothing to do, and everything just seemed bland to him without the band there, but more specifically, without Pete there. Pete used to be just a room away or less, depending on whether they were on the bus or in a hotel. Patrick simply concluded that his life would go back to the way it used to be, but that was hard, too, because before the tour, the whole band was actively working on  _ Save Rock And Roll _ , and before that, they were on hiatus and he was fresh off of tour like he was now, and before  _ that _ , they had finished the  _ Folie A Deux  _ tour and decided to go on hiatus. The in-between moments were very few and far between, and he just hoped this period of stillness wouldn’t last too long. In the meantime, though, he just finished putting his clothes back into his dresser and settled back into his own home.

And maybe, just maybe, Patrick was okay with that.

:-:

It was dark. Too dark. But that was exactly what he wanted, this man draped in black robes three sizes too big. This man was quiet, pondering. Pondering about how he could ruin something so meticulously built, like a house of cards that was just begging to fall with so much as a whisper. But Casey Heatherly loved his job, the job that would lead one certain band to fall apart.

Casey wasn’t your normal villain, no. Rather, he was skilled in drag and had a sort of obsession with KISS makeup. He was that one weird kid in school, the boy who could do the cheerleader’s makeup better than they themselves could, the boy who wore high heels, but he didn’t really care who didn’t like him. His confidence was neither his weakness nor his strength. More recently, though, his interests switched, as if someone had flipped a switch, because his parents had divorced and it was very clear to him that both of them enjoyed and idolized one certain band-- Fall Out Boy. And now he was determined to break them up.

And as stated before, Casey was a man, but hardly so. He was only just nineteen years old, stood at a hearty five feet, and had limbs easily comparable to a small twig. He wore dark, baggy clothing, and most importantly, he was spoiled. At least, until his parents divorced, hence the reason he wanted to destroy the reason why they did so. He was so used to being spoiled and coddled that he couldn’t live without it. And while his flaws were plenty in supply, they were negative in demand, and people started to not like him the moment he got into this “edgy revenge” thing. But, under the surface, Casey was something to be feared. He had stumbled upon a book, a very dark and ominous book, a book that was filled with pages filled with dark magic, black magic, magic to ruin people’s lives.

And Fall Out Boy never expected Casey Heatherly and his dark rituals.

Or… did they?


	7. OHHHHHH WHERE DID THE PARTY GOOOOO

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> I ' m l i s t e n i n g t o J o h n C o z a r t
> 
> A n d a l l I c a n t h i n k a b o u t i s t h e 2 0 1 6 e l e c t i o n
> 
> This chapter was COPIED and PASTED from the original copy. I can't actually effectively write when listening to music lmao
> 
> Anyway, I'll stop being awkward and let you read this chapter

Why was his plan not working? Casey was frustrated. He was pacing around his small apartment, gripping a small black book. In his living room was a circle drawn of white chalk, with odd symbols drawn within it, strewn with candles that had burnt low, but were unlighted. He had cast the spell months before, and while he never expected visible results, he was growing impatient. With Patrick able to read Pete’s thoughts, he would know Pete was a Cupid, and that was very likely to break up the band. All he was doing, really, was sparking a tidal wave of distrust. It had gone perfectly in his mind. He shook his head. He should give it more time. They had just finished tour, so things were bound to go sour for them now. Casey remembered that mind reading wasn’t the only curse he had put on Patrick, instead, he had also laid a understanding spell on him. It caused Patrick to understand the world in a deeper way, which meant that he could understand all different languages and face the harsh truth of the world. Not only would it debilitate the band, but it would debilitate Patrick himself.

Many curses in his book Casey did not understand the negativeness of until he read a further elaboration. In a sense, giving Patrick mind reading and this ability to understand would not have made sense to him before, but when he realized the negatives to them, he jumped at the chance. It was like someone flipped a switch.

He grinned. Not a twisted smirk kind of grin, but a true, happy grin because he knew he would get what he wanted.

:-:

When Patrick woke up the next day, he felt different. Maybe it was because he was waking up in his own bed for once, and that was true. His warm bedsheets felt like home to him, a home he hadn’t lived in for months. Fall Out Boy had planned a huge party today, because they just finished tour. The day after tomorrow, Wednesday, they would be having a long practice session where they could get a start on a new album. Patrick watched as his schedule suddenly filled. There were so many different things to do, and not much time to do them. It was ironic how tour wasn’t as busy as home life.

Even though it was the morning, Patrick figured he should head over to Joe’s. He wasn’t the kind of person to barge in uninvited, but this was _Joe_ he was thinking of. There was a ninety-nine percent chance he wouldn’t care. They’d probably hang out for most of the day, then when evening came, they’d head to a bar and get completely trashed. Patrick never really drank unless there was a ceremonial reason, and plus, liquid courage wasn’t the worst thing. If he did something embarrassing, he wouldn’t remember it. He’d definitely have a killer headache the next morning, though, but it wouldn’t be much worse than going out into public. Patrick thanked his past self for choosing to live in the suburbs.

As Patrick climbed into his own car for the first time in a long while, he thought of how these people who loved this band really didn’t know them— they were dorky little kids at heart, who just so happened to be in a band people liked. They were celebrities, yes, but he still felt like he was in the little garage band that covered Michael Jackson songs and attempted (but failed) to make their own music. He laughed, and fired up the engine.

Patrick hadn’t had breakfast yet, so he stopped at a Waffle House, making sure to remind himself later that he needed to go grocery shopping. The waitress was kind, and took his order before asking for a picture. It was really nice when people considered him like that. And he ate mostly in peace afterwards, which was a plus.

After having breakfast and tipping the waitress, he got in his car again, this time heading to Joe’s house. He stopped halfway, though, and decided to stockpile some food so he didn’t have to go out to eat so much. He drove to Publix, and made sure to flip his hood up because supermarkets tended to have more people in them, and more people meant he was more likely to be recognized. So he covered his face, put his hands in his pockets, and curled in on himself in something like a slouch as he pushed around a shopping cart that quickly filled. Surprisingly, no one stared at him for his darkened, rebellious-teenager disguise, and he was able to get his overflowing cart out of the store and to his car without anyone batting an eye. He drove back to his own house to put everything away.

Patrick would not hesitate to admit he was a workaholic. He needed something to occupy him or else he’d probably go insane, but he didn’t really know that because he’d never really had nothing to do. He had this miraculous way of finding something worthwhile to occupy his mind. These things weren’t always work, which was why he knew he’d have a good time at the party tonight. His fridge and pantries filled up quickly, and the clock said Patrick had been working on that for about an hour, organizing and putting everything away. He shook his head.

“Damn. I should probably get to Joe’s,” he muttered quietly to himself, staring toward his kitchen while he shrugged on his jacket and lightly picked up his hat and keys. He decided to wear one of his less valuable hats because he’d probably lose it.

:-:

The sound of an engine came to an abrupt stop as Pete turned his car off in Joe’s driveway. Joe didn’t have a big house, but it was bigger than his and it had a pool, and everyone always went to Joe for a party anyway, so his house didn’t really matter. Well, it kind of did, because it sat on a large and beautiful lake. It was “a rare find, dude,” as Joe called it, because there generally weren’t a lot of houses with a pool _and_ a lake, but the story supposedly went that some rich couple lived there a while ago and wanted a cleaner place to swim. Nobody was complaining, though. Pete was anticipating some sort of action tonight, maybe he’d find a couple to shoot with his magic bow, he didn’t know. In fact, he didn’t actually use a bow: instead, he did some sort of finger-gun thing and that did the trick.

Pete shook his head. He’d been sitting in his car for something like five minutes and while that wasn’t too long, it was when someone was sitting in their car, which just so happened to be off and in park. He pushed open the driver side door and climbed out of his low-laying car, stretching out his legs and locking it because he didn’t want anyone breaking into it.

Joe’s house was an average sized three-story suburban lakehouse, that also happened to have a pool in the backyard. The outside siding was made of rusty red bricks, and the roofing was dark— Pete couldn’t tell if it was dark brown or just black. Peeling his eyes from the house itself, he walked up to the door and knocked out of simple politeness. The door opened after perhaps a minute, and Pete had the utmost glory of seeing Joe like he just woke up: hair standing up, coffee in hand, bathrobe draped around him.

“Yeah, come in,” he said, his voice crackly like the dusty ground in Death Valley. Pete walked into the house after Joe. The living room was empty, and it looked like it was just him and Joe.

“It’s a bit early,” Joe said, “so no one else is here yet. Make yourself at home, you know how it goes.” He waved his arm like he was Scrooge and plopped onto the couch, careful of his coffee. Pete stood in the doorway for a moment, unsure of what to do, before closing the door and sitting down on the other side of the couch. He found the television remote and turned it on. It would occupy them for a while, at least.

Pete didn’t know if it was a long time or a short time, but suddenly, the doorbell was ringing and he was standing up to go open the door. To his hidden disappointment, it was just Andy. He had nothing against Andy— in fact, he rather liked Andy— but he had imagined Patrick there instead, his crystalline eyes scanning him and his rosy lips pulled into a beautiful smile. Pete stepped aside to let Andy in, and Joe greeted Andy enthusiastically, with bright eyes and a surprising change of mood. For a moment, Pete wondered if there was anything going on, which excited him because he’d be able to use his Cupid power for the first time in years.

And Pete didn’t think this party would be so interesting, but now he knew that this would just be the start of a great night. And there was no doubt or hesitation— Pete was okay with that.


	8. Hey Why Don't We Write Some Lyrics?

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Thank you BP
> 
> I'm still listening to John Cozart if you couldn't tell... haha
> 
> I'm actually still dead inside
> 
> Patrick gets drunk and speaks French ("Patrick speaking French is like wow f*** me right now)
> 
> Joe has some startling surprises
> 
> Everyone gets hungover

_If you knew, knew, what the bluebird sang at you, you, would never sing along._

Patrick jotted the words down quickly in his notebook, which he quickly put down before he left to go to Joe’s. It was just a random lyric, but he was certain it’d make it onto the new record. In this book were a few other lines that would be worked into this album somehow, but he didn’t regard those at all before clasping it shut and throwing it onto the kitchen counter. He left his house and got into the car, making sure his front door was locked before leaving. He plugged his phone into the USB cable so he could play his music, and he sang along to “Girls and Boys” by Good Charlotte on the short drive to his bandmate’s house.

Joe never specified what time to get to his house, so Patrick didn’t know if he was early or late, but this wave of anxiety crashed on the jagged shoreline in his head right before he knocked. It created an insanely intense moment where he couldn’t hear anything, not even anyone’s thoughts, and he was practically frozen. The sound of his fist hitting the wood jolted him out of whatever this stupor was, and the door creaked open. Joe greeted him, ushering him inside.

“Now that you’re here, we can finally party!” he exclaimed, which made Patrick anxious because they were waiting on him, and he didn’t like when he made people wait. But on the other hand, Joe seemed pretty happy, and Patrick was gifted with the assurance of his ability to read minds-- Joe was being honest. So Patrick walked in behind Joe to find Pete and Andy on the couch, playing cards. From what he could see, they were playing poker. “Do whatever, man,” Joe said, “I’ll get out the drinks.”

He heard Pete spit out a laugh, and watched as he fiddled with the cards. “You owe me fifty bucks now, Andy!” Patrick could tell Pete wasn’t much into gambling, but was having fun with it in the moment and pushing his other thoughts about it away. He could tell by the two separate but similar voices he could hear. Patrick stood around awkwardly, not really sure of what to do, but Joe became his saving grace when he emerged from the basement with two bottles-- one filled with liquor and the other with whiskey.

“The beer is in the fridge, you guys can drink whatever you like,” he said, putting the two bottles down and pulling a stack of plastic cups from the cupboard. Joe poured himself a shot of whiskey and Andy stood up, condemning himself to the job of bartender, because Andy didn’t drink and soon everyone would be too drunk to pour themselves a drink.

Patrick knew that this was just the start of a bleary-eyed, hazy, unforgettable (but he knew he’d forget parts of it) night. Things were just getting started, and Patrick was okay with that.

:-:

Now it didn’t seem unusual to Patrick, but he was drunk and his thoughts tumbled out of him like Niagra falls in the winter. Fast, liquid, but cold as ice and numbing to the point where he couldn’t tell what he himself was even thinking. He was underwater, people’s thoughts were melding together like two colors of paint, but the actual sounds he heard, the ones that came in through his ears, those were knives, sharp and icy cold. It was only because he could hardly hear himself in comparison to the loud and sharp world around him that he didn’t realize what exactly he said. To him, it was a garbled mess. To Pete, though, it was a different kind of garbled mess. Joe was leaning against the kitchen counter, downing another shot and probably preparing to try and hit on Andy. Patrick was trying to tickle Pete, for some odd reason, but Patrick knew where all of Pete’s ticklish spots were so Pete was practically helpless. They were both laughing.

“ _Ne plaisante pas avec le monstre chatouillement_!” Patrick heaved out, laughing and sticking out his tongue. Pete laughed big and loud, even if he couldn’t understand the words.

“ _Amour, je veux t'embrasser en ce moment_ ,” Patrick said once they had simmered down. It embarrassed him, how it just slipped out, but he said it so he just rolled with it.

Had he just told Pete he wanted to kiss him? Why yes, yes he did.

:-:

Everything was blurry and hazy, and even though Pete could hardly see where he was putting his feet, he was giggly and his throat was sore because of the fiery drinks he had. Everything blurred together, like he was on a bullet train and looking out the window. He was far too drunk to make a more detailed analogy, so he just giggled and stumbled across Joe’s living room to throw his arms around Patrick from behind. Patrick stiffened, but loosened his posture when he realized it was just Pete.

Patrick shuffled around in Pete’s grip until the two were facing each other and he laughed lowly, his eyes half-lidded. “Hey,” he said, his voice slurred and groggy, like he had just woken up in the morning, but also because he was _very_ drunk, “hey Mr. Cupid.” He smiled like a little kid and pecked Pete right on the lips. Their noses were touching and Pete wondered why Patrick called him _“Mr. Cupid,”_ of all things. But he brushed it off and pulled Patrick to him to do more than just a peck on the lips.

:-:

Andy watched everything go down. He didn’t drink, nor did he do anything to harm himself or others, because he was straight edge and vegan. Not very rockstar-y, but he figured that if people didn’t like it, they could just not listen to Fall Out Boy and that was a hard thing to do. He saw Patrick and Pete all over each other, completely and utterly wasted, and Joe was sat beside him, his head on Andy’s shoulder, sleeping. The three had partied by themselves for a while, and then Joe practically passed out and the other two were basically sucking each other’s faces off. It was currently about eleven or eleven thirty. Perhaps eleven fifteen. Andy didn’t really care, because he’d stay up all night if that was how long it took for Pete and Patrick to fall asleep. He wasn’t worried for their safety as much as he was worried about the safety of Joe’s house-- those two weren’t going to hurt each other, but Andy wouldn’t be surprised if Joe was missing a vase the next morning. Or a pillow. Or the tablecloth on the coffee table. The whole accidentally-stealing-things was all Pete, though. Drunk Patrick was either giggly, happy, and talkative, or serious, almost like some sort of predator. Drunk Pete was the child who didn’t know he’d done wrong-- and he’d done a _lot_ of wrong.

Andy looked at Joe beside him and sighed. He wondered why he put up with the goofball, and pondered it for a while. Patrick and Pete making out in the corner became somewhat white noise, and Andy realized how much he truly cared for Joe.

:-:

Patrick woke up with a killer hangover. No really, he was convinced his head was being smashed open and pieced back together again, over and over. He was reminded of his feelings toward the sideburns and “I heart BINGO” hat he had years ago, before the breakup, before he had lost all that weight. He was amazed at how he’d come so far. But then again, he had a pounding headache, and he needed some aspirin, so he reluctantly got up from the bed he was in and he suddenly felt a warm body next to him. He froze for a moment, turning to see Pete laying there in the bed, but thankfully they both had clothes on. He sighed in relief. Patrick thought it was kind of cute when Pete grasped at the area he had once been, like he wanted him there even in sleep. He shook his head and got up, the bed making a creaking sound in the absence of his weight. He thanked whatever higher power existed that he had sobered up during the night, and even though he saw light a little too brightly, he could see clearly and walk around without stumbling.

After Patrick took a dose of aspirin to ease his hangover, he returned to the guest room where he and Pete had been sleeping. He wanted to try something. If he could hear thoughts, then could he see Pete’s dream? That is, if he was dreaming in the first place. So Patrick sat down on the bed and looked at him like he was expecting something to happen. After five minutes, Pete stirred and Patrick panicked a little because he was watching his maybe-best-friend-maybe-lover sleep. But Patrick was immediately mesmerised by Pete’s whiskey-colored eyes and Pete wouldn’t stop staring back. Eventually, Patrick’s nerves took him over, and he looked away, face flushing in the dim light.

“Sorry,” he muttered. He heard the bed shift, and looked back at Pete to see him sitting up, his shirt ruffled and wrinkled from sleep. Pete was still staring at him, caught like a fly in a trap, like his eyes were frozen, fixed in their position. It felt like time stopped, because neither was moving and Patrick was holding his breath. He released it softly. Patrick was still staring in awe of morning Pete— it was almost as if they could wake up together every morning. He definitely wanted it to be that way.

Pete wrapped his arms around Patrick, pulling him closer and laying a kiss on his lips. As they separated, Pete was dead quiet. Patrick could hear his panicked and buzzing thoughts. _Did he not like it? Oh god, what if he hates me now?_ Patrick shook his head and kissed Pete again, to reassure him. It was the perfect morning moment, and no one had disturbed them yet.

It was perfect, and it seemed like nothing could go wrong.

:-:

An ear piercing scream rattled the whole house. He was going insane, he was sure. Yes, definitely insane. His breaths came out panicked, sharp intakes and exhales. How was this possible? There was no heat, no fire, yet there was smoke filling up his room. And the longer he laid there in his bed staring at it, the more he realized that it was very real, and he did not have a single problem breathing, and that this could be very dangerous to the other people in the house. So, he got out of his bed and shrugged on his bathrobe, figuring that if this was a nightmare, he’d wake up soon and forget the whole thing. He creaked open his bedroom door and suddenly everything was clear. No smoke choked the hallway; the doorframe looked like there was an invisible wall keeping the smoke in. Bursts of colored smoke started seeping into the flat plane this invisible wall made, and it swirled around: purples, pinks, greens, blues, reds, yellows, _everything_. Tendrils of smoke seeped out from the edges to circle him, and he backed away even though he knew the smoke wouldn’t hurt him. The colored smoke was a different story— was it poisoned? It could probably kill him and no one would know, so he flinched away from the vibrant colors. The dull gray smoke, however, he let in tentatively. He didn’t even know why all this was happening— it wasn’t a dream, for sure. He pinched himself, just to make sure. No, the smoke was real. And since all of this was real, he was struck with the panic that someone would see this odd circumstance and he knew he was in between a rock and a hard place. Either go back into his room and face the colored smoke which could very well kill him, or stand out in the hallway and risk someone seeing him being wrapped in animated smoke.

Hesitantly, Joe chose the former.


	9. My First Text Conversation

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Formatting is a word I wouldn't want to say in front of children. But yes there is a text convo, and THERE WILL BE MORE IN THE FUTURE
> 
> And Patrick is intimidating for once.

Patrick woke up with a start. Did he imagine that or…? He shook his head, trying to physically rid himself of the thoughts. Pete, being a heavy sleeper, was still sound asleep, and Patrick admired his sleeping face for a moment before getting up and stretching, preparing to find whatever caused his abrupt waking in his pajamas. He was confused on the previous ordeal; was all that Pete’s dream? Did he dream kissing Patrick? It was strange to think about. Patrick continued to walk down the hallway of the house that had all the rooms, when he saw a tendril of smoke from under Joe’s door. Patrick began to panic.  _ What the hell? Why isn’t the fire alarm going off? Why is there smoke in Joe’s room? Is Joe okay?  _ He was frozen for a single moment. The fact that this could also have something to do with the whole concept of supernatural abilities did not help at all. He pressed himself against the door, trying to read Joe’s thoughts and get some sort of insight on what was going on. His teeth were clenched tightly together; it gave him a feeling of danger, like his teeth were the flint and steel and if he so much as moved the wrong way, they would slide against each other and create a spark, perhaps burning him alive. Such a strange thing to think about. 

But then, a whisper. A thought, maybe: “what the hell is happening?” It was Joe’s voice, Patrick noted, and it had to have something to do with the smoke.

So he knocked on the door— loud, panicked, jerky, so much so that he was sure Joe could hear his heavy breaths— and there was silence. An eerie, deafening silence. And a “I swear to god, Joe, what the hell is happening in there?”. There was the feeling where he just wanted to buckle down, fold in on himself, lean his forehead on the door and cry out. He was shocked, panicked, worried, and frustrated. Not that the mixture of them all was anything like pleasant. There was a hotness bubbling behind the skin of his face, a tightening feeling, and this searing behind his eyes and at the bridge of his nose, and his throat was starting to choke and he had to swallow a hard lump to keep his breathing steady. Patrick was nowhere near emotionally stable, but he also tended to overthink and then suddenly,  _ ohgodwhatifpeoplearedyingohnowhatshappening—  _ and his thoughts went too fast and his emotions were suddenly thrown into the pits of hell because his face was burning right now.

He was greeted by Joe’s thoughts filtering through the crack in the door. It was a confused, jumbled mess and it gave Patrick some semblance of comfort to know that someone was just as confused as he was. One step at a time, he told himself. Breathe. In, out. In, out. Good.

:-:

_ “What the hell is happening?” _

Joe released the breath he was holding. This was it. He was breathing in the smoke that could very well kill him. Granted, he had breathed it before, and it didn’t hurt him at all, and it was also not burning his eyes, but he still had an irrational fear. One breath, two breaths, three breaths.

There was a frantic knocking on his bedroom door. “I swear to god Joe, what the hell is happening in there?” It was Patrick’s voice, obviously. It was higher pitched than a normal guy-voice, like he hadn’t gotten enough testosterone, or something. But is wasn’t squeaky. Rather, it was smooth, and perfect for singing.

_ “How do you think I’d know?” _

For some reason Joe wasn’t bothered to actually speak. Patrick didn’t seem bothered by that, though, because he answered him anyway.

“I don’t. But maybe you did, so I could hope, at least,” he said.

It was one of those things where the longer he thought about it, the weirder it seemed. Like, okay, Patrick just read his mind, cool. So, Patrick just read his mind? Wait. Patrick just  _ read  _ his  _ mind _ .

“Okay, yeah, I get it, I can read minds,” said Patrick, once again breaking the spell of silence Joe had placed upon the room. “Woo. Not important right now.” Sarcasm made the small man seem ten times more intimidating.

“So like,” Joe said, back pressed against his wall, but eventually he went to sit on his bed. It creaked under his weight. “So like, don’t come in here, because the room is full of smoke, and I can breathe fine but I have no idea what will happen to you if you breathe this stuff…” Joe trailed off. He sighed.

“Yeah, I get it. But this is too strange to be natural. Do you think you can  _ will  _ it to go away?” Patrick suggested, his voice muffled through the door. Joe wondered what he meant for a moment, before Patrick spoke again. This whole reading minds things was getting on his nerves. “Look, this whole having powers thing is new to me, too. But someone is trying to gain something by doing this to us and I can only assume that whoever they are ‘cursed’ you, too. It’s very likely that you have complete control over the smoke… trust me.”

So Joe squeezed his eyes shut, and imagined the smoke thinning out, and eventually clearing. Perhaps it would move somewhere, he didn’t know. But no one but Patrick and him should see it. When he hesitantly opened his eyes, the color-spotted haze over his room was gone. He looked around, and opened the door to his room, only to find that Patrick had disappeared.

Suddenly, his phone buzzed. He picked it up, looking at the notification.

 

**Patrick Stump**

_ “We’ll need to talk later.” _

:-:

**Patrick Stump**

**Today**

**(Patrick on the left, Joe on the right)**

_ “So, you said you needed to talk?” _

_ “Yeah, I did.” _

_ “I basically wanted you to know about this whole _

_ ‘power” thing.” _

_ “Pete has a power too, he’s like a human cupid. _

_ He can make any two people fall in love.” _

_ “Earlier you said something about someone giving _

_ us these powers. Do you know anything about that?” _

_ “Speaking of, Pete was born with his ‘power.’ _

_ He’s the only one of us like that.” _

_ “And no, I don’t know anything else about the _

_ person who did this. The idea that someone did _

_ this was a wild guess. But either way, someone _

_ wants to see the band, and its fans, destroyed.” _

_ “What’s your power? Is it just mind reading? Or is _

_ it part of some bigger thing?” _

_ “I haven’t told Pete about this, but yes, it is part _

_ of a bigger thing. Recently I’ve found that I can  _

_ speak every language fluently and understand  _

_ them. I can also talk to animals. Pete only knows _

_ that I can talk to animals.” _

_ “Why haven’t you told him that you can read _

_ minds?” _

_ “I can read his mind. I know what he thinks about. _

_ If he knew that, he would consider it a huge invasion _

_ of his privacy and probably get angry. He has every _

_ right to, though. I wouldn’t want someone probing _

_ around in my mind.” _

_ “I’m surprised you’re okay with it.” _

**Delivered 11:28 AM**

**Read 11:29 AM**

:-:

Patrick shoved his phone in his pocket after sending that last message. He might as well give Joe a cliffhanger, or something. Joe was like his annoying but also very lighthearted little brother, even though they were both twenty eight and Patrick was just five months older than him, if that. But Joe had this tendency to lighten up the room, in such a way where everyone imagined him with his arm pressed against the doorframe, legs crossed and leaning, smacking his teeth on gum and saying something witty and sarcastic in a very flat, deadpan tone of voice. It was just… how Joe was, and it was very hard for anyone to explain because it was just  _ Joe _ .

But Patrick often found it hard to describe people in words. Rather, he preferred the emotions that his brain hooked onto their face in his memory. Pete was this raw emotion, and maybe it wasn’t an emotion, but it was this feeling of being raw and untouched, in a purely natural state. Powerful, unchangeable. Admirable. Hot. Patrick’s list of emotions he related to Pete could go on for as long as he could find words for the emotion it was. Joe was laughter, and humor, and this kind of openness that Patrick never had with his own siblings. His brother would never introduce him to friends, and was always annoyed when he came out of his room to socialize. His sister was always out with girl-friends— at least, that was what she said when she got home at four in the morning. No-- he was getting off track. In basic terms, Joe was the sibling he never had. Andy was the best friend who was so tightly knit with him, he might as well be Patrick’s pseudo-brother, too. Andy was quiet, but when he did speak, it was well worth listening to. That was why most of the things Andy suggested weaseled their way into every album Fall Out Boy made. Andy was this close sense of friendship and simple closeness and the idea of taking advice from a friend. Everyone trusted Andy.

“Hey Pete,” Patrick said, opening the door to the guest room they were staying in. “You’re awake.” Pete was sitting on the bed, shrugging on a shirt.

“I guess I am,” Pete said, jokingly.


	10. Two Bros, Sitting In A Hot Tub, Five Feet Apart Cause They're Not Gay

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> "Understanding," more text convos, and even some Twitter. 
> 
> And all of these things will appear later too ;)
> 
> Patrick discovers some new powers and writes some more lyrics

The following months flew by, perhaps like a bird. But of course, that was a cheesy and overused metaphor. Fall Out Boy had almost completed their newest album,  _ American Beauty/ American Psycho _ . The new year had passed, too. It was now 2014. On New Year's Eve, they had all gotten drunk again and Patrick was almost positive that Pete was his New Year’s kiss. Their social medias had blown up with the announcements of the new album, being released in December of that very year. They would probably postpone it to January, but Patrick didn’t need to think about that at the moment. That was too far ahead. He just needed to focus on the now, and he’d end up okay. Today, the band had an interview together, then Patrick and Andy would play one of their songs live in the studio. It gave Patrick the jitters, but then again, lots of things did. He always had to do something to relax himself so he wouldn’t end up stuttering. He pulled on his red cardigan and set his fedora atop his head before he left his house. The band would all meet at the studio they were being interviewed at.

By the time the interview started, the four were stuffed on a small couch while the the interviewer had his own chair to himself. Patrick was regretting his clothing choices, cursing the coolness of the room, and the creases in his clothing were really getting to him. Finally, the cameraman gave the okay and everyone behind the scenes was quiet. He tried to ignore the people flirting around in the background.

“So, as we all know, you guys have your new album coming out,  _ American Beauty/American Psycho _ . My first question is how did you get that name?” The interviewer asked. Patrick was pretty sure his name was Matt.

Since Pete was the one who usually spoke and took the initiative in this kind of situation, Patrick could feel the surprise in the room when he answered instead of his bandmate. It quickly faded into the new normal, though. “I guess it comes a lot from how we were in high school. I mean, before the hiatus, Pete’s lyrics and the things we said made it pretty clear what kind of boys we were: the awkward kid who wanted the popular girl, who messed up a lot, that kind of thing. I think it reflects that, but in a darker way, which is ironic because the actual sound of the album is the most pop we’ve ever done.”

Patrick himself was surprised at how much he was able to say. He usually just didn’t have much to say. But yet, he continued.

“I like to think there’s some sort of weird story behind it, like we used to be the awkward quiet kids, but we finally just snapped and became something bad, or went psycho for the beauty.” And even then, Patrick wasn’t sure if he meant for the beauty of it instead of the beauty, but he had said it and there was nothing he could do now.

The interviewer nodded.

“What was your main inspiration for the album? What is the theme?” He asked.

And so it continued.

:-:

The next thing Patrick knew, he was in the soundproofed studio with a microphone and Andy sitting next to him. Or maybe he had just decided to pay attention again, leaving him in a state of foggy memories that he couldn’t remember because he wasn’t paying attention. Or something like that. He didn’t really know his own head that well. The two of them had decided to play “Centuries,” one of the new songs on the album that no one had really heard yet. Patrick started to sing the entrance notes. Well, he didn’t know what they actually were, maybe just him saying “doo” over and over, but with a melody. Either way, he eventually started singing lyrics with Andy clapping along and singing the backing vocals.

The song ended way too soon, but Patrick was okay with that.

:-:

 

**Twitter**

**Hypehypehype @Pantherpanther**

@patrickstump How’s Peterick going?

1k retweets 753 likes

 

**Patrick Stump @patrickstump**

@Pantherpanther two bros sitting in a hot tub five feet away from each other bc they’re not gay

17k retweets 23k likes

 

:-:

**Pete Wentz**

_ “Hey Patrick?” _

_ “Yeah?” _

_ “I saw that tweet you posted and it’s been  _

_ confusing me” _

_ *screenshot of tweet* _

_ “Oh, that?” _

Patrick felt a surge of confidence, because for one, he couldn’t hear Pete’s thoughts, and he was technically typing into a phone and he could convince himself that he was talking to a phone instead of Pete. Quite convenient, actually.

_ “Ironic, because I’m actually very gay haha” _

_ “And sadly, Peterick hasn’t been making any progress lately…” _

_ “Do you want it to?” _

**Delivered 5:53 PM**

**Read 5:53 PM**

 

Long story short, Pete stared at Patrick funny the next time they saw each other.

:-:

For being in a band together, Pete and Patrick didn’t see each other that much. Especially because they had finished all the recording for the album and they were just working on the editing process. The text conversation never really came up, and everything was just stagnant. Well, at least with Pete and Patrick it was.

Patrick and Joe had been figuring out this whole smoke power thing. It was actually rather simple: Joe could control smoke and what color it was, which could prove to be handy in a sticky situation, if they ever got into one. Joe was surprisingly okay with the whole reading minds and speaking every language thing, and Patrick was busy discovering new corners of it. They had agreed to call it “understanding” because listing all the different things could be a struggle.

 

**Joe Trohman**

**(Patrick on the RIGHT, Joe on the LEFT)**

 

_ “Status update: found a new part of my understanding” _

_ “Go on…” _

_ “The language thing applies to music, too. I’ve got perfect pitch, can recognize chords and progressions, all that. Too many things to brush off as talent.” _

_ “I’m at the piano right now, playing dissonant stuff. You know, diminished, augmented, minor, suspended” _

_ “Well I don’t know but yeah okay” _

_ “This power of yours is proving to be pretty powerful” _

_ “I don’t know what I’d use it for, though” _

_ “That’s the problem.”  _

_ “At least I know how to send some very important messages through music” _

_ *Audio file* _

_ “Huh?” _

_ “Put it through a tuner” _

_ “Dear god, Patrick” _

_ “It spells cabbage” _

**Delivered 6:17 PM**

**Read 6:18 PM**

 

:-:

Patrick was figuring out what “understanding” really meant. Was it like king Midas, whatever he touched he “understood”? Or perhaps it was whatever he heard. Or— not heard, but rather… he couldn’t explain it words anymore. Because it wasn’t any of his five senses, it was this  _ knowing  _ that he felt. So, in a sense, instead of hearing people’s thoughts, he  _ knew  _ people’s thoughts, because his actual ears weren’t hearing the thoughts, it was his mind. With animals, it was as if their minds were a translator, because animals generally spent so much time around humans that they somehow knew the language. And Patrick, by definition, just  _ knew  _ what they were saying. It was the exact same with foreign languages, almost. Most people didn’t think in words, and instead they thought in a jumbled mess of pictures and sounds, and Patrick  _ knew  _ what it all meant, like this eternal mystery that he solved with a snap of his fingers.

Somehow, after all the salt water had boiled, Patrick was left with the white crust in the bottom of the pot, the metaphor for something in his life he couldn’t quite think of. To anyone else it seemed empty, but for him it was a metaphor filled to the brim with pure meaning, but he couldn’t piece together what it was. Perhaps it was like a puzzle without the picture on the front of the box, and without putting it all together, he’d never truly know what it meant. Reality checks like this were what kept Patrick sane. He was able to understand such a wide amount of things, and he never really got to delve into mystery or suspense anymore. Everything became carefully planned. It was as if someone turned the lights on, and he couldn’t explore the darkness with just his little flashlight, so he had to improvise. Mysteries were a black light. They were his shadows.

He shook his head. Was he really going insane? He could just… understand. Was that some sort of special ability, or was he just delusional? Here he was, making strange metaphors and trying to debunk his sanity. He laughed at himself mirthfully. It didn’t matter how hard he laughed, how evilly he cackled— no one would hear him in his desolate suburban home at three in the morning. Wait— no, two fifty-nine.  _ Now  _ it was three. He gazed at himself tiredly in his bathroom mirror, eyeing his face, how terrible it looked. Both in terms of how tired he was and how ugly his face had always been. For a portion of a moment, he imagined what life would be like if he never existed in the first place; but then his memories flooded his mind, invaded him, and he remembered he was too much of a coward to die by his own hand.

He returned to his dark bedroom and felt inspired to write something poetic. He found a sticky note and wrote,  _ “honey I only appear so I can fade away, I wanna throw my hands up in the air and scream, and I could just die laughing on your spiral of shame.”  _ He stuck the back of his mechanical pencil in his mouth, thinking. The pencil hit the sticky note once again.  _ “He’s an American beauty, I’m an American Psycho. I think I fell in love again, or maybe I just took too much cough medicine. I’m the best worst thing that hasn’t happened to you yet.” _

He stared at the small piece of paper and found that it seemed to be staring back at him.

 

_ “Your Love is anemic” _

 

He kept writing, filling it up. He ripped it from the stack and stuck it on the wall, writing some more.

 

_ “Fall to your knees, bring on the rapture, _

_ Blessed be the boys time can’t capture” _

 

_ “I said I’d never miss you but I guess you never knew _

_ That the bridges I have burned light my way back home  _

_ On the Fourth of July” _

 

_ “I’m sorry every song’s about you.” _

 

_ “You can get what you want but it’s never enough _

_ I’ll spin for you like your favorite records used to” _

 

And Patrick fell asleep at his desk, writing in the dark, on small sticky notes which were now scattered across his wall, collected in a general area right in front of him. His bangs splayed out on the table and he snored, but only lightly. 

And most of all, Patrick couldn’t remember half the lines he had just written.


	11. The American Psycho

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Patrick has a nightmare.

Pete didn’t like his name. And by thinking of how he didn’t like his name— out of nowhere, he must add— he felt like that “Shower Thoughts” twitter account that posted the most random thoughts that probably no-one had ever thought of. But he was getting off track. He didn’t like how long his name was (Peter Lewis Kingston Wentz III? _Really?_ ), and for some reason he guessed that was the underlying motivation for the insanely long song titles he made from thin air. So he could relate to his songs, maybe. He laughed at himself. Why _wouldn’t_ he relate to his own songs? The notion of not relating to one’s own thoughts and feelings, hidden by metaphors in beautiful song, was insane. Pete remembered the lyrics he wrote before the hiatus, the poorly hidden message that he was desperately in love with Patrick. For instance: _“I keep telling myself, I keep telling myself, I’m not the desperate type, but you got me looking at the wall.”_ And perhaps that one was a little more hidden, but he could still get nervous about it, especially when he was handing it over to Patrick to read. In reality, it didn’t matter what words he wrote, he’d still get nervous when he sent them to Patrick.

Pete wanted to write something-- lyrics, preferably-- but he just couldn’t think of anything. He had always told himself to write what he felt, but his feelings were already in words. He was sure he overused the notion that he never wanted to grow up and as he looked at himself, he laughed. Here he was, all grown up. Thirty one years old, and here he was. Every kid’s dream, every parent’s nightmare. That’s what he was. A _rockstar_. And in the depth of his thoughts, he remembered one interview from during the tour.

The interviewer had asked Patrick if he thought the band would ever get as far as it had. His answer seemed to ingrain itself into Pete’s brain: “I don’t think it really matters-- I mean, I _never_ imagined we’d get this far-- because in the end, I’d do it all again. These guys are my very best friends, and the people that listen to our songs are just as messed up as we are.” Pete still wasn’t inspired to write anything, but he wrote anyway.

 

_“And in the end, I’d do it all again_

_I think you’re my best friend_

_Don’t you know that the kids aren’t all,_

_Kids aren’t alright?”_

 

:-:

Casey Heatherly smiled a big smile at his computer screen.

_“Patrick Stump Diagnosed Insane? Read to find out!”_

:-:

Patrick was _not_ crazy. He knew he wasn’t. It was a virus, slowly destroying his career. He could tell, because the record sales and streams on Spotify and Pandora and all the other music programs were going down by this crazy amount. It was so strange to him. Before, when he was diagnosed with multiple mental disorders and swore to the earth that he’d help people with theirs, they listened with a close ear. But now, when he is publicly called psycho, people suddenly hate him. It felt like high school all over again. What was “professional,” anyway?

Apparently, according to the doctor he went to, he was “delusional,” because he was “hearing things,” in social withdrawal— he had just switched from a cramped bus with five other men to suburban home life, of _course_ he was in social withdrawal— and some sort of “illogical thinking.” In the past year, he had been showing “unusual behavior.”

“You’re hallucinating,” he said. “Seeing things you shouldn’t see and hearing things you shouldn’t hear.”

“You’re delusional,” he said. “Thinking that the voices are the minds of others.”

“ _And_ you have a past of both other mental illness and drug abuse.”

“You’re insane.”

Patrick just needed some time to think. _Alone._

…

But maybe having Pete there might not be so bad…

:-:

The couch made an obnoxiously loud creaking sound as Pete sat down next to Patrick. They were in the studio, watching Andy record the drums for “American Beauty/ American Psycho,” which they had completed writing just a week before. If they had to rush, they’d all be recording at once, but it was nice to step back every once and a while and watch the others play. The two could hear the music Andy was playing along to. Patrick usually recorded the vocal part first, because then he could add pauses or slow down and speed up for effect, so then the instruments could follow that. Then guitar, then bass, then drums. Then there was this annoying phase of going in and out of the recording booth to tweak things. But in the end, Patrick would do it all again. It was worth all of the hardship.

“How are you doing?” Pete asked, and Patrick’s calmness suddenly disappeared. He was silent for a while not knowing what to say, building up pressure.

“How do you _think_ I’m doing? You’ve read the news, haven’t you?” He snapped, he seethed, he mocked. His head whipped to the side to face his friend. _Friend_. The word was foreign on his lips, even if he never said it. Pete stared at him, eyes wide and confused. Like he had watched a rat walk right into a trap, but with no intention of killing it. Patrick was the rat in the trap.

Yet Pete never said a word. Just stared, with this weird, unplaceable emotion swimming in his wide eyes. With his distracting earthen eyes and dyed-blond hair. With the stubble on his chin and his lips slightly parted, opening to where he could see only blackness inside. The perfect face, the perfect man that Patrick could only imagine when he read some sappy romance novel and here he was, the man only his mind could create.

_Only his mind._

And something clicked. A wide grin spread across Pete’s face— too wide to be real— and nothing unnatural happened. Pete just gripped his neck, smiling that evil smile, cackling an evil cackle, and this time Patrick’s eyes were blown out and surprised. This time, Pete was the broken one. Patrick was losing his breaths, they became soft and shallow, and Pete’s hand felt cold and lifeless, like necromancy was all that was giving him strength.

 _“Yeah, look at you,”_ came a distorted voice. Pete’s lips were moving along with it, but the voice wasn’t his. _“Insane and insecure, hmm… yes, your career is dead! Oh, how wonderful. You must be overjoyed! Overjoyed and… and delusional that… that… is…”_

It slowed and came to a stop, like a machine running out of battery and slowing down, halting, dying. Instead of dying, though, everything just went black, and Patrick was no longer short of breath.

Just laying in his bed, in the middle of the night, drenched in sweat from his own nightmare.

:-:

This time they actually _were_ in the studio, Andy playing drums along to “American Beauty/ American Psycho,” and Pete was fashionably late. Joe was sitting next to Patrick, who was nervous because of his nightmare. Even the smallest thing would set him off. Joe and Andy had both seen the tabloids, and while they were tempted to not believe it, think it was a lie, the both of them had tried to come to terms with the fact that their singer was psychotic. Patrick wanted to at least try and bring Joe to his senses-- Joe had seen his mind-reading himself-- but it was to no avail.

The loud drumming noises ceased as Andy finished up and left the recording booth. He sat down in one of the chairs as Joe picked up his guitar and went in. Joe seemed to be a perfectionist that day, because he took around ten or fifteen takes. As he was concentrating on his guitar on the sixteenth, Patrick couldn’t help but notice that there was smoke starting to cloud the room. Andy seemed worried.

“Is there a fire in there?” Andy asked, strangely calm for the situation at hand. He looked at Patrick warily, as if he almost trusted the only source of information he could get.

“No. But something happened with Joe a week or so ago. Apparently he can control smoke. I have no idea how it happened,” Patrick said, meeting Andy’s eyes. The singer shrugged. “You don’t have to trust me, anyway. It might’ve just been a delusion, you never know.” Sarcasm leaked from his voice.

Andy shook his head. “I trust you,” he said. “And why didn’t Joe tell me about it?”

Patrick knew Joe and Andy were very close. It must have shattered his trust to hear that.

“You know how the superhero stories go. The dude with the powers can’t really tell anyone about it, because in this kind of world, even your bandmates can betray you. It’s dangerous enough that you know.”

There was the distinct clicking sound of the door opening, and Joe stopped playing.  Because the recording booth was mostly soundproofed, Joe had to use the small intercom to say, “is that the pizza guy?”

Patrick looked over his shoulder at the door. “Well, we never ordered pizza, so I’m assuming it’s reasonably close to the pizza guy… Probably Pete.”

And low and behold, it was, in fact, Pete. Upon seeing his face, Patrick went tense. The singer could almost _see_ the sick smile spreading across his face, the cold hands on his throat, the _voice_ . Oh god, the _voice_. And the worst part?

Pete didn’t seemed phased by Patrick's terrified expression.


	12. The Awkward Tinder Date

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Patrick and Pete start hearing voices and Casey Heatherly is definitely not satanic.

Patrick remembered a year ago-- the band had just released  _ Save Rock and Roll  _ and they were planning tour, and Patrick could suddenly read minds. It wasn’t all the media had chalked it up to be. Instead of words, people thought in pictures, sounds, and memories. And there wasn’t any other way to describe the other ways people thought other than they  _ thought _ . Looking into someone’s mind was just like being transported into an alternate universe, with a constantly changing landscape and different sounds, tastes, and smells. It was completely different from what Patrick was used to in his life before.  _ Before _ …

Before was when Patrick didn’t know Pete liked him, when he didn’t understand half of what people were really saying to him. But now, his life had changed, and not in a good way. He was scared of himself, of his own mind. Sure, he could understand things, but at what cost? It wasn’t like he asked for this.

_ I know you didn’t. _

Oh, so he was schizophrenic now? Great, so he was insane  _ and  _ heard voices. Just what he needed.

_ Based on what that therapist said, you were already hearing voices. _

“Oh shut up.”

It was a good thing Patrick was in his house, alone.

_ Make me. Oh wait,  _ he could hear the grin in its voice.  _ You can’t. _

“Look, all I want to know is why you’re here. Who are you? Are you the one who did this to Joe and I?” Patrick asked, his question fading off into empty air. He looked around his small in-home studio, trying to find a source for the voice. Whatever it was laughed, an unsettling, high pitched but still male laugh.

_ I guess I’ll humor you… Not like you could find me, anyway. _

Patrick raised a single eyebrow, a trait he was rather proud of. This person had some guts.

_ Hmmm… My name. That’s what you asked first, wasn’t it? Wait, no. You asked me who I am. Well, my name is Casey Heatherly. I am quite proficient in the practice of dark magic. _

So like… crop circles and stuff? Patrick leaned back in his chair.

_ Alright, next question of yours. Why I’m here. Well, my goal was to drive you insane and destroy your career because it was you that tore my parents apart.  _ This Casey person was eerily calm, even though he just hinted at his parents divorcing because of Fall Out Boy… strange.

_ I have no idea how it happened, but I’ve gotta blame somebody. Sorry man, you’re probably a genuinely good person— but a man’s gotta do what a man’s gotta do. _

And then a silence, an emptiness. An emptiness Patrick could only disturb with his voice and the guitar on his lap.

Before he played, however, he thought of the Casey figure he had just met. He picked up his lyric notebook and started to write.

 

_ “They took our love and they filled it up _

_ Filled it up with novocaine and now I’m just numb _

_ Now we’re just numb” _

 

:-:

Casey was also silent. He had lost all caring as to what the band knew about him, but after hearing Patrick’s voice, he was starting to overthink everything he was doing. Just hearing his voice through something other than a speaker gave him a sense of humanity. It was hard to kill something so much like himself.

But then again, he was bored, and video games were getting monotonous. He decided to contact Pete this time.

_ Why hello there. _

:-:

Life, actually, was monotonous, and the “little things” that would usually seem interesting just didn’t seem interesting enough. It was like summer break as a kid, no day job and no school and nothing to do but eat, sleep, and live. Even working on the album, though it seemed like a new adventure every day, was getting old.

Pete sighed. He really had nothing to do— television just bored him, and it was still strange to not wake up in a cramped tour bus practically swamped with testosterone. And it wasn’t like the other members of Fall Out Boy were his only friends, because he had plenty of friends. They were just all in the music industry and touring, or they didn’t live in Illinois. In fact,  _ none  _ of his friends lived anywhere remotely near him, not counting the band, of course, because they were like his family and Patrick was just a little bit more. He tried to write something, but no words seemed to fit the feeling swirling around in his chest. Maybe because it was just empty.

Then, there was a voice.

_ Why hello there. _

Pete sat up, not knowing if he was being watched or if someone was just using black magic to get inside of his head.

“Who the hell are you?” he asked tentatively, looking around him to make sure no one was standing in the shadows with a loaded gun. The voice groaned.

_ Look, your little singer friend already asked me that. I’m Casey Heatherly, I’m into drag and weird makeup, can this not be an awkward Tinder date? _

Pete blinked. “You’ve talked to Patrick like this?”

_ Yes, he didn’t like me very much. _

That made a lot of sense to Pete. Patrick wasn’t the biggest fan of creepy voices.

_ I hate to break it to you, Pete Wentz, but your little boy-toy has been reading your mind for the past year, and he didn’t tell you a thing. _

What?

Pete froze. Was that true? He considered it for a second, and even though this Casey person was nowhere near credible, he believed it. There was an uncomfortable feeling in the pit of his stomach. The feeling of betrayal.

:-:

Casey was a generally smug person, even described to be a snake sometimes, but at the moment he was more smug than usual. His silver tongue was doing him good. He was carefully pulling strings ever so slightly and carefully to get what he wanted. By convincing Pete that the world was against him, it would break apart his friendships, his job, and eventually, his band. He grinned.

Now, Casey wasn’t inherently  _ evil,  _ per say, just misguided. He was young, and black magic was a curse, slowly eating away at the user’s sanity until he couldn’t control what he was doing and hurt the people he cared about. Black magic was the evil part. Casey just held the motivation it needed. As he remembered the fact, he sighed. He only had so much time to do what he needed to, before it completely took him over. But it had been a year, and Patrick Martin Vaughn Stumph was stubborn. The singer hadn’t so much as cracked yet.

“Casey, I’m home!” came a shout from outside his door-- his mother, obviously. He hurried to pick up the clutter on his floor in a panic. Not only had his mother told him specifically to clean his room, but he had candles and black chalk strewn everywhere, needed for his spells.  _ Rituals  _ sounded too much like he was a satanist. He just worked with pentagrams and evil goats.

Definitely  _ not  _ satanic.

Nevertheless, he shoved his candles in a drawer and pulled a plush rug from under his bed to cover the markings on his floor. By the time his mother creaked open his door, he was sitting at his vanity, a makeup sponge in his hand, applying foundation that wasn’t his shade at all. Nevertheless, his mother stared for a moment, then closed the door. That was close.


	13. Fight Off The Light Tonight And Just Stay With Me (Honey Don't You Leave)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> This chapter is longer than Fall Out Boy's song titles.
> 
> But hey, romance.
> 
> Also, BE PREPARED FOR AN EMAIL
> 
> ALL THE FORMS OF COMMUNICATION IN THIS FIC

Pete had stared at him before, but never like this. Patrick was confused, until Pete pulled him aside. Joe and Andy continued to practice. The band was currently all together, practicing some new songs. Only one had all of its lyrics, and two or three were missing a verse or a bridge. The rest were simply ideas.

Pete’s larger hands were rested on Patrick’s shoulders, and his face was hard as steel, his eyes set in something like a glare. Patrick was reminded of the time Pete did think he was crazy, but it was just a vocal mess-up. He was just as scared. Losing his friends terrified him more than anything else in the world. As a result, he seized up just like he did in the last bad encounter with his best friend and maybe-lover. It was a strange relationship they had. Pete’s thumbs rubbed the cardigan over his shoulders in a comforting gesture despite his facial expression.

“So you’ve been reading my mind?” Pete asked, and Patrick’s breaths started to shallow. It wasn’t the most fun thing on top of being frozen in fear. His anxiety was coming back, he needed to take his medication. His eyes darted anywhere but Pete. Meeting his eyes came with the threat of a spike in his anxiety, and that wouldn’t help him at all. It took all of Patrick’s mental strength to nod his head.

“I’m… I’m sorry, I…” Patrick mumbled, his eyes wide and directed toward the floor. He needed to leave. Too much depression, too much anxiety, filling up his disorderly brain. His chest was constricting. He needed to leave. He needed to leave.

Pete’s hands held no resistance as Patrick brushed them off.

“I have to go. Home. Yeah, I have to go home,” he said quietly. And he left. Out the door, past Joe’s worried stare and Andy curious glance. He could feel Pete’s eyes on his back up until the door to the studio clicked shut.

Pete  _ knew _ .

:-:

Patrick sat on the cold ground. Chicago winters were quite cold, and December was hardly springtime; he shivered and tightened his coat around himself. He wished he was inside, with heated air and lights, but instead, he was sitting on the snowy ground in the dark, staring at the streetlights that seemed to not reach his small little crevice between the sidewalk and the outside wall of the studio he just walked out of. Even though he was wearing multiple layers of clothing, the chills he felt made him feel exposed to the air. Fresh snow was settling on top of his fedora, and his scarf was pulled up to his ears to substitute muffs.

“Mister? Are you okay?” A little voice said, and the motion-activated floodlight turned on. Patrick was sitting in one place for so long that it had turned off. He looked up and saw a small calico cat approaching him, her paws sinking into the snow and leaving shallow prints. Her only noticeable feature was her eyes. They were so blue they almost radiated a crystalline light. He could only really tell the cat's gender by her coat color, because all calico cats were females, he was pretty sure.

“Yes, I’m fine,” he replied, “where are your friends?” He then asked. She looked at him closer and smiled a strange cat-smile. Patrick was worried, because this cat seemed to innocent to be alone. No cat should be wandering the streets in the cold.

“Not here,” she said, giggling. Patrick rolled his eyes, deciding not to push the subject. Just as she started to lay down in the snow, he realized he didn’t know her name.

“Who are you?” He asked, and suddenly felt as if he was pelting her with questions. Her smile did not falter as she answered, though. Her tail swished in the air.

“Oh, my name is Judy!”

She sat down next to him. “I’m Patrick,” he said. He jokingly tipped his hat to her, and she laughed a surprisingly adorable cat laugh. He felt like he shouldn’t ask her why she was here, for some reason, so he just waited for her to speak.

“Why are you sitting all alone in the cold?” she asked, looking over at him. He paused.

“I was stressed. Someone very close to me found out something they shouldn’t have,” he replied, wringing his hands together out of nerves. Judy’s tail stopped moving, and her ears perked up.

“If they’re so close to you, shouldn’t they accept you for who you are?” she asked confusedly.

“It’s a bit more complicated than that,” Patrick said, “the reason I kept my secret from my friend was because if he found out, he wouldn’t trust me anymore. I couldn’t control it.”

“Even if it’s something you can’t control,” she said wisely, standing up and burrowing herself under one of Patrick’s arms, “he shouldn’t judge you for who you are. Even if you found out his deepest darkest secrets, a friend like that should trust you to not tell anyone.”

Then Patrick started to feel bad. He’d been talking to Joe about his powers instead of Pete, and it felt like he was doing it all behind Pete’s back. Maybe that was how Pete felt when they were on their brief break after tour. He sighed.

“You’re right,” he said, “but sometimes it’s hard to forgive and forget. We’re all human, none of us are perfect, but that shouldn’t keep me from trying. Thanks for that.”

The cat nodded. “You should go home,” she said, “it’s cold out. And it wouldn’t make sense to say you were going home, just to sit out on the street.”

Patrick, who was staring at the footprints in the snow, looked up at her.

But she was gone.

:-:

 

_ “I’ve got those Jet Pack Blues, _

_ Just like Judy _

_ The kind that make June feel like December _

_ I’m the last one that you’ll ever _

_ Remember _

_ And I’m trying to find my piece of mind _

_ Behind these two white highway lines _

_ When the city goes silent _

_ The ringing in my ears gets violent _

 

_ “She’s in a long black coat tonight _

_ Waiting for me in the downpour outside _

_ She’s singing ‘ _ _ baby come home _ _ ’ in a melody of tears while the rhythm of the rain keeps time _

_ I remember _

_ Baby, come home _

_ Baby, come home _

_ Baby, come home _

_ Baby, come home _

 

_ “Did you ever love her, do you know? _

_ Did you ever want to be alone? _

_ She was singing ‘baby, come home’ _

_ Baby, come home.” _

 

Pete stared at the eMail. It was from Patrick, and he didn’t know what to make of it at all. Instead, Pete wrote back, in the only way he knew how.

 

_ “I’ve got those Jet Pack Blues _

_ Fight off the light tonight and just stay with me _

_ Honey don’t you leave _

_ Don’t you remember how we used to split a drink? _

_ It never mattered what it was, I think _

_ Our hands were just that close _

_ The sweetness never lasted, no. _

 

_ —Pete” _

 

:-:

As a result of months of hard work,  _ American Beauty/ American Psycho  _ was finally finished. Everything had been recorded, and even though they were all in a band together, Pete and Patrick spent as little time together as possible. However, though they were done with the production of the album, they still had music videos to produce, and directors to hire, and scripts to make, and lots more work to do. It wouldn’t be a stretch to say that the music was the easiest part. They still had to make an album cover-- plan it, hire a photographer, hire a model, makeup artist, find a location-- and the videos would be putting a lot of stress on the money situation. Everything they had to do almost made their major problems seem small. It no longer mattered that Pete could make people fall in love, or that Patrick could “understand,” or that Joe could control smoke.

Pete was stressed out. This new album was proving to be more work than they asked for, and he could personally relate to the song they made, called “The Kids Aren’t Alright.”  _ Maybe I’ve bit off more than I could chew _ . The “Centuries” video was to be released as a single before the rest of the album, and the plane tickets to get to the colosseum where they would be filming would be expensive. They had to hire actors, a director, a photographer… the list went on too far. With their previous album, “Save Rock and Roll,” the music videos were low budget, even though they had created eleven of them. They had done it all while on tour, too. But this? The single would be released before the album, and the album would be released before tour. There was no way to avoid the extra work.

He walked into the airport and went through security smoothly. He thanked whatever higher power there was that he wasn’t held up, and sat down on one of the hard benches to wait for his flight to come. Out of nowhere, a warmth appeared beside him.

“Fancy seeing you here,” Patrick joked. Pete laughed, and rolled his eyes. The two hadn’t been around each other physically in the last few months, mostly because the singer felt he could record better in the comfort of his own home, so the recording studio usually housed only Pete, Joe, and Andy. Over that time, Pete came to terms with Patrick’s mind reading abilities.

“I should probably come clean, myself,” he said after a long pause. “For one, I can’t control whose mind I read and when. I just hear everything.” Patrick looked at Pete. “This Casey person… He’s trying to drive me insane, quite literally,” he said, laughing at himself and shaking his head like Casey was a petulant child.

“I didn’t consider that,” Pete said softly, in realization. “I-- I should have known. I should have been there for--”

“There’s another thing,” Patrick interrupted, laying his hand on his friend’s shoulder for comfort. “It’s not just reading minds and talking to animals… it’s been slowly getting worse, like a disease.”

Pete stared at him in disbelief. “How would having these amazing powers be a bad thing?” he asked.

_ He just doesn’t understand,  _ Patrick thought, shaking his head. “It’s so many other things-- unrealistic musical talent--”

“I thought you already had that,” Pete quipped. Patrick shot him a playful glare.

“Understanding any language, and if I have to live more than the year I already have with all of this, I really will go crazy… It’s tough, Pete. I’m not the kind of person who would take this all willingly, I don’t want life served to me on a silver platter. I just want to help people, that’s all I ask.” Patrick was getting frustrated at himself, and he cried when he was frustrated. He could feel the sting behind his eyes.

Pete softly laid his hand on top of Patrick’s hand, which was placed on his shoulder, and shifted himself so that their sides were touching. Pete only understood a small fraction of what Patrick was telling him, because he had a similar feeling when he never found a chance to use his cupid ability. It felt more like a burden than anything else. “I might not understand what you’re feeling completely, but that doesn't mean I can’t make you feel better. Here,” he said, and hugged Patrick.

Patrick was practically melting into Pete’s arms, until he heard his thoughts. Pete thought Patrick didn’t like him in that way.  _ Funny _ . Pete was disappointed when Patrick pulled away, but he had other ideas. Patrick leaned in and kissed him. It didn’t take long for Pete to react, because soon, the two were pressed so tightly together that they looked like a single (rather large) person. Patrick’s hands were fixed on the sides of Pete’s face, trying to pull him ever closer, and Pete’s arms were wrapped around Patrick’s middle, doing virtually the same. It was a moment soaked in pure bliss.

But the kiss, like all good things, had to end, and the two men split apart from each other, gasping for air. Nonetheless, Patrick still stared at Pete like he was the only thing in the world.

What a shame they were in a public airport.

_ “Flight 197 boarding. I repeat, flight 197 boarding now.” _


	14. Welcome To Chicago Radio (A.K.A. The Black Parade)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Relationship goals, jet lag, first dates, and Chicago Radio.

It came as a surprise that there was no more awkwardness, as if the kiss had created a bond that could only be achieved by years of constant love. Patrick was sleeping, his head rested on Pete’s shoulder as the plane flew. Sometimes the singer would tense in his sleep, and Pete would hold his hand to calm him down. No speech was needed in between the two.

Pete was confused about the anomaly of their connection, but then he remembered.  _ Mr. Cupid _ . It was the nickname his dad gave him when Pete found out about his ability to make people fall in love. Patrick had called him that when he was drunk, along with some French phrase he couldn’t understand. His guess was that because he hadn’t used his power in so long, it had slowly built up over time and the sober kiss he shared with Patrick released it all in a big wave, and he briefly wondered if Patrick felt it, too.

Pete decided he needed to think of something else, so he went on Twitter.

 

**pw  @petewentz**

**So excited to film this week! Watch out, “Centuries” coming soon!**

**15.3k retweets 17.8k likes**

 

Patrick stirred next to him. “How long until we land?” he asked groggily, lifting his head off of Pete’s shoulder. Pete shuddered as cold air replaced his warmth. He put away his phone to focus on Patrick and smiled softly at him.

“About half an hour. We’re almost there, hon,” he replied. They were going to Greece to film in the famous colosseum there, so the band, the actors, and the rest of the filming crew were on the plane with them. Pete wasn’t sure if a video anything like it was even possible, but the producer seemed to believe otherwise, so he could relax. Patrick laid his head back on Pete’s shoulder, but didn’t doze off this time. He sighed.

“Pete,” Patrick said, getting Pete’s attention because he sounded rather stressed, “what are we?”

Pete tensed. “Whatever you want us to be,” he answered, his words not quite aligning with his thoughts.

Patrick’s hand found Pete’s hand and gripped it tightly. He knew what Pete wanted them to be, and he knew what he wanted them to be. “Boyfriends, then?”

Pete laid his head on top of Patrick’s. “Yeah,” he mumbled into his hair.

:-:

They landed soon after, and both Pete and Patrick came to an agreement to keep their relationship secret. News of their relationship would ruin them, more than they had already been ruined. But it was practically impossible to keep something so big from Andy and Joe.

On the other hand, when the plane landed, the crew went straight to the site they were filming at, none other than the famous colosseum in Greece. It was only as they drove closer that Patrick realized how cool the experience actually was.

“Whoah, this place is so huge,” Patrick said softly in amazement as Pete drove into a nearby parking lot to park. The colosseum was easily visible over the small park buildings. The town surrounding it was very rural, and the producer for the video was blabbering on about how amazing it would be to film here. He was ignored.

Pete pulled Patrick away from the group, and into a small restaurant. “Here,” he said, “how about a first date?”

Patrick smiled, the biggest he had smiled in a while, and kissed Pete quickly on the lips before finding themselves a table.

It was almost perfect.

:-:

_ “Patrick Stump makes amazing comeback from insanity with new music video, ‘Centuries’!” _

Casey frowned.

:-:

 

_ “Some legends are told, _

_ Some turn to dust or to gold _

_ But you will remember me, _

_ Remember me for centuries” _

 

“Hello, this is  _ Chicago Radio _ , and we’re here with Fall Out Boy! Everybody knows who you are, ever since the comeback, but would you care to introduce yourself, boys?”

“Uh, yeah, my name is Patrick Stump,”

“I’m Pete Wentz,”

“I’m Andy Hurley,”

“And I’m Joe Trohman.”

The interviewer continued: “you guys just came out with your new single, ‘Centuries.’ So what’s the story behind it?”

Patrick was quiet, knowing that this kind of question was Pete’s to answer.

“I think this new album we’re coming out with is just like a testament to how long we’ve survived, you know? And we want the old fans to remember us as  _ that band _ , the one that shaped so many people. There are other underlying themes, yeah, but the main thing I wanted to drive home with these lyrics was that we’ll be remembered in 2020, 2030, heck, even  _ 2040\.  _ We’d be classic punk by then!”

Patrick laughed. “I don’t really think about that kind of stuff,” he said. He sneakily held Pete’s hand under the table and squeezed it. Pete squeezed back. “I mean, it’s not my job to, anyway.”

Pete rolled his eyes and smiled. “Whatever you say, ‘Trick.”

The questions from then on were unrelenting, as they always were. All of Fall Out Boy were glad to leave at that point. Not that the interviewer wasn’t polite, but all the questions were beginning to get uncomfortable.

As the four began to find their cars in the parking lot, Pete and Patrick had stuck together because they had parked close together-- only two cars were in between theirs. Patrick would always admit that he wished he had a sports car, but he could never really get rid of his little red Kia Soul. Pete followed Patrick to his car, and tried opening the driver’s side door for him, but it was locked. Patrick laughed at Pete’s futile attempts to be courteous.

“So chivalry really isn’t dead,” he joked, and Pete shot him a playful glare.

“And you could’ve unlocked your car about two minutes ago,” Pete retorted, shifting his glare to his boyfriend’s hand, which held the car keys (that he wasn’t using to unlock the car). Patrick laughed again, unlocking the car so that Pete could open the door for him. Even after he was buckled in and ready to drive home, Pete didn’t go to his own car.

“Pete,” Patrick said to get his attention, “you need anything?”

Pete had his hand on the back of his neck in an adorably awkward way. “Well, I, uh…” he trailed off. Patrick raised an eyebrow, but didn’t push it. He knew Pete wasn’t the most socially adept. He also didn’t want to see into Pete’s mind, so he tried focusing all his attention on the steering wheel.

“It’s okay,” Patrick assured, “you can tell me whenever you want to. I won’t push it.”

Pete still had his moments, and Patrick was okay with that.


	15. "In The End" Sounds Too Much Like A Black Veil Brides Or Linkin Park Song

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> "Let's move in together!"  
> "We should get a dog."  
> "'In The End' sounds too much like a Linkin Park song or a Black Veil Brides song."  
> “'Soul Punk' has made you a new man.”

**Pete Wentz**

 

_ “So, I was wondering if you wanted to move in with me? _

_ So we could be, like, together together. No one else in the  _

_ band has to know” _

_ “I mean, it was worth a shot”  _

_ “Oh, sorry I couldn’t respond for a while, I had _

_ stuff to do. But yeah, I think that’s a great idea! _

_ It’d take a while, though.” _

**_Read 6:17 PM_ **

 

:-:

“Are you okay?” Pete asked as Patrick almost dropped the last box on the hardwood floor. Instead, he carefully placed it down.

“Not really,” Patrick responded. “My arms are sore, my fingers hurt, and you decided to tease me the whole time!” However, Patrick knew that he loved Pete too much to actually get mad at him.

Three months had passed, and a buyer was interested in Patrick’s old house, which was good because he would finally get some extra money in his pocket. Moving in with Pete hadn’t cost much aside from the boxes and the moving service (although Patrick only paid the truck people), which was also good because he didn’t have to buy a whole new place. And now Pete and him could hang out whenever they wanted. he was also getting a lot better at keeping thoughts from entering his head, and the silence was like a breath of fresh air. Pete’s thoughts were merely whispers in his head now, and if he was in a large crowd, it wasn’t as bad as it usually was, even though it still gave him a migraine.

“Well, we have to leave for practice in about fifteen minutes, so I suggest you get ready,” Pete said, pulling on a light jacket. “Oh,” he added, “I forgot to mention, I’m driving you.”

“Pete!” Patrick exclaimed, half smiling and half humble. “You don’t have to drive me!” Pete rolled his eyes while Patrick continued. “You know what? I’ll drive.”

“Nope. I’m driving.”

Patrick sighed, knowing that being stubborn would just make them both late to practice. “Why did you even schedule practice today if you knew I’d be moving in?”

Pete kissed Patrick on his cheek. “Because, I love always having something to do,” he said, and winked at his boyfriend. The singer’s cheeks flushed with embarrassment.

“Pete,” he whined, drawing out the name, “you’re such a weirdo!”

Pete smiled and laughed. “I’m your weirdo, though. And I’m driving.” He jingled his car keys in front of Patrick’s nose.

“Alright, fine. You can drive us.”

:-:

The drive was far from silent. The two were talking animatedly to each other about their lives and about how they would be spending them together.

“So, if we’re like a couple now, shouldn’t we have kids?”

“You’re thinking about kids already, Patrick? I’d much rather have kids  _ after _ we get married.”

“Are you asking me to marry you?”

Pete laughed; Patrick found it cute that his boyfriend laughed so much. It was like he was eternally happy. “No,” Pete said. “Let’s give it a bit more time.” The corners of his lips dropped slightly. “We don’t want to think anything’s a definite; now, do we?”

Patrick laid a hand on Pete’s shoulder, knowing exactly what he was thinking. His mind was going through all the bad things that could happen to their relationship. “Hey,” Patrick said, barely a whisper, “Let’s stick together for the fans, yeah? Even as friends.”

“Well,” Patrick said after a pause, louder than before. “What I meant about kids--” he smiled at Pete “-- was that we should get a dog!”

Pete laughed at Patrick’s unknowing attempt to lighten the mood. Pete liked that Patrick always did things without realizing it-- or, in simpler terms, Patrick never realized the great things about himself, which made him humble and gave him so many traits that Pete loved.

“Hey,” Pete said, looking at Patrick, “we can’t exactly talk about that right now, though. We’re here.” And the car stopped as Pete shifted it into park. He jumped out of the car and opened Patrick’s door for him before he could do it himself. Patrick rolled his eyes at Pete.

“Chivalry really  _ isn’t  _ dead,” he joked, much like he had before. Pete laughed at his joke.

The two walked hand in hand to practice.

:-:

_ “I just can’t handle this, Martin! Think of the kids! What about Casey? What about Dottie? They can’t live with you, much less than I can!” _

_ A small girl trembled by Casey’s side. “Why is mommy yelling at daddy?” she asked innocently. He shoulder-length wavy hair usually just brushed her shoulders, but it was tied up today. Her name was Dottie, and to Casey, she was probably the most innocent human being on planet Earth (even though he would never let her know that). Like most little sisters, she admired Casey, even though their father never really liked him much because of his strange hobbies. “And why can’t we live with daddy?” she added, making Casey worry. _

_ “I dunno, Dot. But we might not see daddy for a while. I think they got a little mad at each other.” _

_ “Oh, well I hope they forgive each other soon.” _

_ “I do too, Dot.” _

_ “Get out!” Their mother picked up a square vinyl record case and threw it at the door: “And take your damn records with you!” The vinyl crashed against the door, and it was painfully obvious that the vinyl inside the case was broken, because shards were spilling out of the cover. _

_ The father picked up the vinyl and looked at the cover. “Fall Out Boy, huh? I thought these songs were our songs-- no, they’re just yours.” _

_ And he left, slamming the door behind him and never coming back. _

:-:

“I’m yours,” Patrick sang, “when it rains it pours, stay thirsty like before. Don’t you know that the kids aren’t all, kids aren’t alright?” He plucked out a tune and hummed melodies over mumbled words.

“So what do you guys think?” Patrick asked, looking up from the strings on his silver guitar. Normally he just used it for performances, but he felt in the mood for it today. The rest of the band nodded and hummed in agreement.

“Personally, I really like it,” Pete said, but added in his thoughts:  _ “I’m pretty biased, though…” _

Andy and Joe also agreed, in their own varying ways. “Yeah, that’s cool,” Joe said.

Andy just said “yeah.”

“I’ve been calling it ‘In The End’ for now, but I’m sure that’ll just be a working title.” Patrick said, adjusting his guitar strap.

“‘In The End’ sounds too much like a Linkin Park song or a Black Veil Brides song,” Joe said. “I think it should be called ‘The Kids Aren’t Alright.’”

Pete nodded. “That sounds better. Either way, we should work on the verses. Patrick, you said you had an idea for that melody?” he asked, turning to his boyfriend.

The singer straightened up. “Yeah, I do,” he said, and started humming notes. “I’m not passive, but aggressive-- take note, it’s not impressive. Empty your sadness like you’re dumping your purse on my bedroom floor, put your curse in reverse,” he sang.

Joe laughed. “Looks like we don’t need to do much writing for this one,” he commented.

“You’re taking my job!” Pete joked, smiling so big that Patrick was sure he’d split his face in half.

Patrick rolled his eyes. “I have more in my notebook, if you want,” he said, making everyone but Andy laugh. It wasn’t that Andy wasn’t amused-- he was just a really quiet person. Patrick could hear the laugh in his thoughts. Patrick waved around his notebook to emphasize his point.

“We get it, we get it,” Pete said, laughing. “--  _ Soul Punk  _ has made you a new man.”

Patrick stuck his tongue out at his boyfriend.

“You’re such a kid!” Pete said, barely getting the words out around his laughter.


	16. Pas De Cheval Is My Aesthetic

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Hey look it's Butch Walker.  
> Remember that video where Brendon went to Butch's house and Butch tried to kill him? Haha, good times.

_ Casey entered his room. It was after his parents had fought, and he somehow managed to get Dottie to sleep soundly, though she’d probably wake up with nightmares. Somehow, Casey just knew these things. It was dark in his room, and he was always embarrassed to admit how he rushed to the comfort of his bed in fear of the dark. But tonight, it was hard to be scared of the dark because he was worried. About his sister and his mother, or what would happen to all of them now that their father was gone. _

_ And then he thought of the vinyl that crashed against the door earlier that night. The song that was playing in the background: “Thnks Fr Th Mmrs.” _

_ All it really did was break his parents apart. _

But maybe, just maybe, he was wrong. Maybe those four men hadn’t really done anything wrong.

:-:

 

“Stuck in the jet wash,

Bad trip, I couldn’t get off,

Maybe I bit off more than I could chew,

Overhead in the aqua blue.”

 

Pete nodded from the other side of the glass, smiled, and gave Patrick a thumbs up. Through the microphone, the only way to communicate in and out of the soundproofed room, Pete said: “You’re doing great, honey.” Patrick rolled his eyes.

“Alright, I think we should do a few more takes of that section and then maybe we could overlap it with the next one,” Patrick suggested, and got four nods in return. Their producer, Butch Walker, was staying in Chicago indefinitely until the album was finished so that he could be there as they were recording. This kind of thing was a work trip for him, kind of like how touring was a work trip for Fall Out Boy. The term “work trip” made Patrick feel a little more grown up, even though he was twenty-nine and should probably feel grown up already. He was practically a rock star, though, so he was living his high school dream.

Patrick remembered what he actually wanted to do as a kid, though. He wanted to be an audio engineer, and make that kind of equipment more effective and practical to use. Imagine his intrigue when he figured out he could not only be the one making everything sound pretty, but the one  _ producing  _ pretty sounds. He remembered the first time his older sister caught him playing around with his own voice in his room one day after school. She walked in through the open door, asking what in the world he was doing. It may not have sounded like it, but Patrick had turned cherry red in embarrassment. He wasn’t completely used to the whole singing thing.

(:)

_ The door creaked silently, but Patrick didn’t really take notice. He was too busy singing a song called “Man In The Mirror.” It was by Michael Jackson, one of Patrick’s favorite artists. He really liked the message behind the lyrics and how the instruments seemed to bend around Michael’s voice. It was one of the reasons he wanted to be a producer, but hearing those lyrics coming from his own mouth was… intriguing, to say the least. He sounded nothing like Michael Jackson, but instead had his own edge to his style that might’ve been so similar to his idol’s. _

_ “Take a look at yourself, and make a change,” he sang, stopping the recording system on his computer. Just as he was about to listen to himself sing, he heard someone speak from behind him. He pulled off his headphones and turned around to see his older sister, Marienne. _

_ “Sorry, what was that?” He asked, looking at his sister confusedly. She laughed. _

_ “I asked you what you were doing, silly,” she said, rolling her eyes. “I didn’t know you could sing.” _

_ Patrick folded into himself, embarrassed. He didn’t even know what he sounded like to other people, so, of course, having someone else hear him sing made him nervous and jittery. “N-neither did I,” he answered, his voice just as shaky and clammy as his hands. _

_ Marienne smiled, her face softening. “Well, I think you’re an amazing singer. You could be a rockstar!” she said encouragingly, noticing her little brother’s nerves. Patrick smiled. _

_ “Thanks, Mari,” Patrick said. _

_ “I’m serious, though, ‘Trick, you should make something out of that voice. It’s not everyday that someone has that kind of voice,” she told him. _

_ Patrick smiled and thought about Joe’s offer about a week ago. The younger of the two, which just so happened to be Joe, had a friend named Pete that could play bass, and Joe himself could play guitar. His contact was almost haunting Patrick from his phone. Patrick was still a little conscious of his voice, so instead of being the singer, he reasoned, he could be the drummer, because the drums was the musical instrument he was best at. Being in a band would be pretty cool, he reasoned with himself. _

_ Marienne left the room when she saw Patrick put his headphones back on, so he was left to think alone. He decided that the notes staring back at him from his computer screen wouldn’t be getting any more musical, so he decided to call Joe. It was summer, so both of them had just graduated high school, which was nice. But it also meant that Patrick was starting to get letters from colleges, and there were a lot of acceptance letters. It was only worrying because he couldn’t do this whole band thing if he was in college, but maybe he’d try it out for the summer and decide what he wanted to do later. _

_ That first band practice started the chain reaction that changed Patrick’s life, little by little. _

(:)

“Alright boys! Let’s take a break!” Butch said, clapping his hands together. Patrick was glad to have a break, seeing as he could never get a take perfect and he was wearing out his voice.

Butch definitely  _ looked  _ like he was from the country. He was heavy-set, not in a crossfit way, but more in a working way— so instead of going to the gym, it looked like he only had enough muscle to do something like farm work, even though he probably didn’t. He also had lots of tattoos, though none of them were dark, giving them a faded look. Had dark, slicked back hair, hazel eyes, and stubble on his chin. His actual name was Bradley, but he never liked it, so he gave himself the nickname “Butch”. If Patrick weren’t so enamored with Pete, he’d almost crush on Butch. Too bad he was married… to a woman.

Butch was one of his good friends, anyway.

“I’m ordering pizza and no one can stop me!” Pete said obnoxiously loud. Patrick only heard it because he had just stepped out of the recording booth.

Patrick laughed. “You’re such a doof, Pete!” he exclaimed.

Pete leaned close to him, muttering in his ear: “I’m your doof, though.”

Patrick rolled his eyes. “Go call Domino’s, I know you have them on quick dial,” he joked, nudging his boyfriend with his elbow. Even just in his head, the word seemed foreign to him.  _ Boyfriend _ . Patrick never had a boyfriend before.

But now he did, and it was  _ perfect _ .


	17. The Death Of A Bachelor

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Sasstrick strikes back.  
> Sasstrick also has an idea (not MCR).  
> This also happens to be the reason the last chapter was so short.

It was probably the stupidest thing he’d ever thought of, but Patrick had a crazy idea. He already knew from months of dating Pete that he wanted to spend forever with him. He wanted to wake up to Pete every morning and know that he could call this beautiful man his husband. He wanted to buy a fancy engagement ring and propose. He was… he was going to get down onto one knee and do it. No second-guessing, he made sure to remind himself.

But he hadn’t even gotten a ring yet.

Right, he had to do that.

He didn’t know what size of ring Pete was, so as his oblivious victim was napping on the couch, he took a little piece of string and wrapped it around his boyfriend’s larger hand-- specifically his ring finger. Then he made sure to hold the part of the string where it met the other end, so he knew what size ring to get. He cut the string and stuffed it in his pocket, leaving the apartment to go spend an unreasonable amount of money on a stupid ring.

Upon arriving to (he paused, looked at the sign above the store, and then nodded) Zales, Patrick started getting more nervous by the second. For once, he was glad he wasn’t famous enough to have crowds of paparazzi at his heels. He headed into the store, feeling out of place in the gleaming, cleaned room, with soft smooth jazz music playing in the background. Romantic. But most of the people in the store were probably looking at the rings and at what could have been, after seeing the price tag. Patrick was suddenly glad he had lots of money.

He headed up to the counter. “How may I help you sir?” the cashier asked.

“I’d like to see the most expensive engagement ring in this store.”

:-:

To make a long story short, if that cashier could write a Yelp review on Patrick as a customer, he would’ve gotten two-and-a-half stars; he would’ve gotten the full set had he not been so demanding to please his boyfriend.

:-:

Patrick was sitting at a table for two in a fancy Italian restaurant. He wanted to impress Pete, but his boyfriend hadn’t arrived yet. Patrick didn’t like to worry too much, but he felt stares and could practically feel the pity radiating from people at other tables.

_“What a shame, his girlfriend stood him up,”_ one lady thought. He laughed under his breath. He way gay, of course he would laugh at the assumption he was straight.

Usually he tried to hide it, though. He was famous, so being assumed straight was normal.

“Stump?” he heard softly in the background. It obviously wasn’t directed at him, though.

“Right over there, sir,” he heard next. This voice was the lady that he gave his reservation to, so he looked over at the podium where she stood. There Pete was, smiling at him. The chair opposite Patrick squeaked as Pete pulled it away from the table to sit down.

“You got a _reservation_ ?” Pete asked incredulously. Patrick laughed a little bit, also hearing the negative thoughts of everyone else in the restaurant ( _“They’re gay? Ugh. Disgusting.”_ ). “Those are expensive, you know,” Pete added.

“Yeah, I do know,” Patrick said. “I just wanted to do something special for us.” He was reminded of just _how_ special by the little velvet box in his pocket. Just thinking of it made him so nervous he wanted to vomit. “ _Just get it over with and it’ll be fine,_ ” he told himself, over and over.

On the other hand, something was going off in Pete’s head. Because of his innate affinity for anything relating to relationships, he was left to wonder just why Patrick’s heart was fluttering so fast. Just in case, he decided to use his power for the first time in years.

As a result, Patrick felt a calming wave come over him. “ _I can do this,_ ” he thought, “ _I’m going to do this._ ” His mind was suddenly blocking all the bad thoughts he was hearing, as if it only let the good ones in.

“ _They’re such a cute couple!_ ” he heard. He stopped fidgeting with the ring so much, for which he was glad. He didn’t want to pinch his finger with the box. He didn’t want to do it right then; instead, he wanted to wait until the bill came. That would be the perfect time.

As they ate their fancy Italian food, Patrick picked at his spaghetti nervously. No matter how suddenly calm he was, the box in his pocket taunted for every second he acknowledged its existence. It seemed like the bill came way too soon.

It was as if Patrick had remembered every sweet little thing that had happened over the past two years; the days when Pete would comfort him when he got sad or frustrated, the days when the two would just hang out on the couch watching movies for no particular reason, and everything else that made Patrick just smile. Pete was his reason to smile. Even though the two hadn’t been officially together for so long, they _had_ been whatever complicated thing they were before, and it still felt like they had been lovers for years, though in actuality, they were just friends for a majority of that time.

Patrick took a deep breath, preparing himself. “Pete, you’re the greatest man I’ve ever met-- wait, no. The greatest _person_ I’ve ever met-- and I’m so happy to call you mine. It’s so weird, like ‘this guy, Pete Wentz, is actually dating _me_ instead of some girl,’ like whoah, that’s insane. We both know things about each other we’d swear to never tell a soul, like my power to read minds-- among other things-- and your power to make people fall in love. How ironic that I fell in love with Mr. Cupid, huh?” He laughed for a second, and looked up to see Pete, his _boyfriend_ , in complete shock, with his hand over his mouth and his eyes blown wide.

“And I know what you’re thinking,” Patrick joked, sliding out of his seat and pulling the velvet box out of his pocket, “but no, I’m not breaking up with you.” It was one of those jokes that wasn’t intended to be funny, but it was anyway. He fell onto one knee and put the box in his hands in front of his. His hands trembled as he opened it.

“Well, what I’m asking is…” Patrick said softly, trailing off to focus on opening the box with his shaking hands. It took a few seconds to actually get it open. Only after the box popped open, revealing the intricately carved gold ring, did Patrick continue: “... will you marry me?”

:-:

After everything that had happened-- the most important of which being that Pete had agreed to marrying Patrick-- it seemed like everything had calmed down. Life was normal. There was band practice three times a week, if not more, wide ruled papers peeking out of every corner, full of unused lyrics, and the couple was happy with everything. The two had made a bet on how long it would take for people to start noticing their engagement rings, and Patrick was always amazed that the man he woke up next to every morning was his _fianc_ _é_. Pete had bet that it would take people at least a month to notice.

“Have more faith!” Patrick had exclaimed, playfully smacking his fiance on the shoulder. “I’d bet that they’d take a week, at the least.”

Band practice the Monday after was the real test.

Patrick could vividly remember walking in and everything going as normal, and then as he moved his hands around when he sang the notes to “Jet Pack Blues,” Joe started to look at his left ring finger. Patrick found it ironic, because Pete’s ring had been scraping against the fretboard of his bass the whole time and no one had noticed, while Patrick had _almost_ tried to make his own ring that much more noticeable.

He heard Joe gasp halfway through the song and the thrumming of Patrick’s rhythm guitar part was all that was left in the absence of lead guitar. After Joe stopped plucking notes on his guitar, Andy stopped playing, Pete stopped playing, and finally, Patrick let one last chord fill the room before muting his strings and muting his voice.

“Is that an _engagement ring_ Patrick?” Joe asked, like Patrick was some sort of “sly dog” (though Patrick would wholeheartedly admit to not knowing what the phrase meant). “Who’s the lucky lady?” the guitarist added, wiggling his eyebrows up and down, making everyone laugh.

Inside of Pete’s head, Patrick could faintly hear a sound of defeat (because Pete just so happened to lose their bet) and confirmation to tell the band the story behind the rings. Consequently, both Patrick and Pete lifted their hands to showcase the rings.

“Haven’t I told you that I’m into guys?” Patrick asked jokingly in response to Joe. “Not girls--” he emphasized, “-- _guys_. Crazy, right?” he said sarcastically, putting his hand on his hip for extra effect.

“But yeah,” Patrick continued, taking his hand off his hip for a moment and interlocking his fingers with his fiance’s. “We haven’t scheduled a wedding yet, and we still have a lot to do.”

“We’re starting to plan it after practice today,” Pete added. Patrick knew the start of planning would mean going to Staples and buying a binder to collect all their collages of wedding images that they wanted at their own wedding, and just by mentioning the wedding, Patrick’s thoughts drifted to how he wanted his and Pete’s wedding-- something out-of-the-ordinary, maybe a red and blue palette. He already had some pictures on his phone that he’d have to print out later.

It was mainly Joe that stared at them for the rest of practice, because Andy was the type of guy to only question things in his head instead of being intrusive, which Patrick was thankful for. He was honestly sick of answering questions because of all the times he had been interviewed, and he was sure Pete felt the same. “It’s just new,” Joe had said when Patrick asked him why he was staring.

Patrick had imagined all the bad things Joe _could_ have said, so much so that he almost forgot what his friend had actually said. Thankfully, he just needed to know that Joe was supportive, and he wouldn’t really care either way because he’d be damned if he let one of his bandmates get in the way of his happiness.


	18. She's Not Dead On The Coffee Shop Floor Just For The Attention

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The black magic is finally taking its toll on Casey, and it has attracted a demon called Blurryface, who has wicked plans for Fall Out Boy, fueling its anger and evil with the mischievous thoughts Casey had been thinking of. Now Casey can't escape.  
> On the other hand, Pete and Patrick do a little more dog talk.  
> But, of course, something hideous is lurking just on the horizon.

It was gradual. A slow declination of Casey’s sanity and moral compass. He knew he had been using the dark magic for too long, somewhere deep in the back of his head, but he had gotten so used to handling the cold smog that it had invaded his head and pushed his consciousness to the back of his own head. He was in the backseat of his own head, he was having more and more trouble controlling his thoughts, and it was genuinely terrifying him. It slowly became harder for him to hide his doings from his mother and sister, because the darker personality taking over his body didn’t care at all who saw him. It had introduced itself to him subconsciously as “Blurryface,” though Casey didn’t think it was much of a name. But he assumed that demons wouldn’t have human names, anyway.

_ Pain.  _ The words would ring in his head.  _ Make them feel pain. Make them hurt.  _ His goal was never to hurt Fall Out Boy, just cause them inconvenience. Make them know that their pedestal didn’t make them untouchable.  _ Make them suffer. _

Pain. White-hot. That’s what Blurryface wanted.

It happened when he was at work, a barista at a local coffee shop. A pretty girl had walked up to the counter.

“I’d like a hot fudge mocha, please,” she said, her caramel hair falling on her shoulders as she moved her head. She was pretty, but not Casey’s type. He couldn’t focus on anything other than keeping Blurryface at bay, so he really couldn’t admire her features. All he had to do was make her a hot fudge mocha. He was about halfway through making the beverage when his heart seemed to stop, and he collapsed. A dark fuzz surrounded his vision and Casey knew he was gone-- Blurryface was in control now.

“Oh my god! Are you okay?” the girl exclaimed worriedly. Casey’s legs, piloted by Blurryface, pushed him back into a standing position and he chuckled wryly.

“I’m fine, I just tripped,” came a voice that wasn’t his, but the girl didn’t notice. “I guess I should clean this up,” he said, eyeing the spilled mocha on the tile floor. Blurryface ripped off a few pieces of paper towel from the roll and mopped it up. Casey decided that he’d mop when he was back in control of his own body, but for now he was being suffocated, and he could only see what was right in front of him. After Blurryface cleaned up the mess, he remade the hot fudge mocha. At least he was making the right thing.

Casey noticed, though, as Blurryface was carrying the drink to the counter, that black tendrils were seeping into the lighter drink. It didn’t take a genius to know it was poison, of some black magic origin, because Casey didn’t have any sort of poison on him.

_ Don’t drink that! It’s poisoned!  _ Casey wanted to shout, but he couldn’t. He wasn’t in control of his own body, and all he could do was breathe calmly like nothing was happening. Tense, Casey watched the girl saunter to a booth and sip on her mocha, knowing what would happen eventually. She laid her head on the table and at that point, Casey was pretty sure she was gone-- lifeless. Behind the face that was calm and collected, he was staring at her, wide eyed and mouth gaping; Blurryface just stared for a few seconds, and took another order, poisoning it as well.

Everyone who took an order from him from that point on died only minutes later, and all Casey could do was watch.

:-:

“Pete,” Patrick laughed, “I’m serious!” Pete was laughing at him, and despite his efforts to be serious, Pete’s laughter was contagious, and Patrick found himself laughing, too. They laying next to each other on the couch, and the tight squeeze that pressed the two tightly together comforted Patrick more than Pete likely knew. Pete kissed Patrick on the cheek, his scruff tickling his fiance’s face. “Stop!” Patrick said, his voice almost falling to giggles, “that tickles!” Patrick squirmed and faked trying to escape from Pete’s strong arms that were wrapped comfortingly around him, causing them both to erupt in a fit of laughter.

After it died down, Patrick spoke again. “So, as I was saying, I think we should get a dog,” he explained. Pete frowned slightly.

“It sounds like a great idea, but how will we take care of it? We’re both gone all day for band practice half the week. I doubt a dog would survive a month with us,” Pete said sadly.

“We’re not gone  _ all  _ day for practice, Pete,” Patrick said, “and plus, it would be a lot easier because I could understand it.” Patrick sighed to himself, reluctantly continuing. “But I don’t really want to take advantage of these powers. Who knows, they could disappear just as fast as they appeared.” Patrick frowned sadly. He didn’t like to take advantage of something that could be so fleeting, but ‘that’s just life,’ as Marienne would say.

He hadn’t spoken to Marienne in a while; he wondered how she was doing.

Pete stared at his fiance’s solemn face and rethought getting a dog, deciding that it could probably work if both of them worked together. “Hon?” he said, getting Patrick’s attention. His fiance looked up at him. “It’s a Saturday, we can go to the shelter and take a look. No puppies, though,” he said, making Patrick smile.

“Really?” Patrick said, wide-eyed and surprised. “You’d do that for me?”

Pete rolled his eyes. “I’d do anything for you, dummy. Is that even a question?”

Pete’s question was rhetorical, but Patrick jokingly answered anyway. “Yeah, it was a question. And now I know the answer.” He playfully punched his fiance’s shoulder.

:-:

Casey never had a waking moment since Blurryface had poisoned that girl. It was as if once the demon had gotten a thread of control, it completely took him over and controlled everything he did. When he was at the coffee shop, when he was at home, and even when he drove, it wasn’t Casey, but instead, it was Blurryface. Who knew demons knew how to drive. As Blurryface looked in the mirror, admiring itself, Casey was disgusted at the dark, hooded eyes and the tousled hair that should belong to  _ him _ . But instead, it was Blurryface controlling him like a puppet. A twisted smirk taunted him from the mirror, and if he had a jaw to clench in annoyance, he would be doing just that. He was just a personality in the back of his own head.

Blurryface exited the bathroom and stalked toward his room, opening the drawer and smiling at the chalk, candles, and other dark reagents that Casey used to use for his dark curses. Blurryface started to draw circles on the floor and Casey was unfamiliar with the pattern, which worried him. Now that this demon was trying-- no,  _ succeeding _ \-- to do terrible things to the men that had troubled him, Casey had truly lost all motive to actually seek his “vengeance.” He supposed that since he was no longer in control of his own body, he could freely contemplate everything he had done it the past year and a half, concluding that his initial reasoning was idiotic and what was more idiotic was how susceptible he was to the pull of dark magic. As he thought, he took his chance to gaze at the patterns Blurryface was laying out on the floor. Even though the markings were unfamiliar, he recognized a few symbols among to scribbles that he could identify and translate. To make a long story short, none of them were inherently good. He recognized “erase,” a symbol he hadn’t used before but wanted to at some point in time, “ability,” one he used rather frequently for Patrick’s unusual torture (if Casey could even call it that, he didn’t know what was going on in that dark-filled brain of his a year ago now that his thoughts were cleared in the now), and “voice.” The latter symbol came with a sense of serious foreboding not only because of its existence, but its placement, because the three symbols he recognized were situated next to each other in the exact order he had named them, creating a legible command.

_ Erase. _

_ Ability. _

_ Voice. _

A jolt of pleasure shocked his brain for a second, leaving Casey confused as to where the dopamine came from, but as he looked through his own eyes again, he saw the small flames sitting atop the dark candles and he shuddered (as much as one could shudder, not being in control of his body and all). The ritual was complete. The symbols glowed a dark purple, reminiscent of a blacklight, as Blurryface recited the words in a voice much darker than his own.

_ “Victim.”  _ Casey belatedly remembered the first symbol’s translation as the demon said it. He wanted to slap himself in the face for being so stupid and forgetful, but he had no control of his arms-- or entire body, for that matter. This symbol shone orange instead, infused with the aura of the desired victim; Casey could recognize it even in his detached state, because he had used that exact same aura many times. Patrick Martin Vaughn Stump.

_ “Erase.” _

_ “Ability.”  _ Casey hadn’t realized that these two symbols occurred twice, and he felt as stupid as he did seconds earlier.

_ “Voice.”  _ At this point, Casey was tensing up, and he tried to regain some control of his body, but it was no use. Blurryface was locked in.

_ “Sing.”  _ This symbol was completely unfamiliar to him, and lacked the soft curves of his usual writing, which lead Casey to infer that this wasn’t a dark magic symbol, and instead, a demonic symbol, which made him shudder.

There were many other words, all of them foreboding, and all of them with the intention of legitimate destruction. There was a feeling, deep in his gut, though, that gave him a spark of hope despite the disaster unfolding before him.


	19. Cherri Cola and Ryan Ross

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Patrick loses his voice, and everything he had been "blessed" with. After figuring out that being powerful is a painful curse, Patrick realizes that being something weak is even more painful.  
> Blurryface releases its hold on Casey, but for how long? And can Casey manage to find help from this dreadful new evil?  
> Ryan Ross is a psychologist that studies the social groups formed within the LGBTQ community, and finds an odd drag queen by the name of Cherri Cola, who has secrets almost as strange as...  
> Well, he comes in later.

Patrick was reminded of the morning after the party celebrating the end of the long Save Rock And Roll tour, which involved lots of alcohol, and Patrick could vaguely remember saying something to Pete that was incoherently French. The reason why he had such deja vu was because of the state he had woken up in: screaming. It didn’t help that he shared a bed with Pete, who had also been shocked into awakening by Patrick’s panicked screams.

“‘Trick!” Pete exclaimed, obviously shocked beyond belief at his fiance’s strange behavior, “‘Trick! Listen to me!” He didn’t want an incident like what had happened long ago-- Pete couldn’t remember the exact setting, just him rudely asking what was  _ wrong  _ with Patrick-- so he made sure to keep his voice calm and steady.

Patrick looked at his fiance with wide, doe eyes. His jaw seemed to have come unhinged, because it was still opened. “What happened?” Pete asked, pulling one of Patrick’s hand toward his chest comfortingly.

“Nothing,” Patrick lied. “Just a bad dream.” Pete could hardly hear Patrick’s voice, though, and even at such a volume, it sounded like the singer was straining just to do that.

In reality, Patrick felt empty. His thoughts were alone for the first time in two years, and where his throat should be, he felt nothing. Nothing at all. Speaking was as hard as punching something with a broken arm, wrist, hand, and all five fingers: possible, but unreasonably painful, very likely to be dangerous, and for the most part,  _ im _ possible. But for once in the last two years, he could hear the birdsong outside the sliver of opened window, and he could appreciate the song he’d set as his alarm tone (“Beat It,” which so happened to be one of his favorites despite the fact that it woke him up every morning) without thinking about how a seventh chord was commonly used in jazz music and the sixth was generally a darker sounding note. So even though he felt empty, he also felt free in some ways. His throat was still practically screaming at him for making such a loud noise a minute ago, and he knew he wouldn’t be able to sing for a while.

Picking up his phone and turning off his alarm, he turned to Pete, who voiced his thoughts without knowing it. “Let’s get you to the doctor,” his fiance said, worry creasing his face in a way that made him look a few decades older than thirty-three. “You don’t sound good.” Pete pulled the covers away from the both of them, got out of bed, and started to get dressed. He smiled, though, when he realized his fiance hadn’t moved from his spot on the bed, knowing all too well what Patrick was looking at. “My eyes are up here,” Pete said jokingly, and even though it felt like his throat was being put through Satan’s paper shredder, Patrick laughed.

His throat felt like he had a bad dream turned reality in which some sort of evil demon had ripped out his throat and charred the wound left behind, and whenever he spoke it felt like a knife was being shoved from his jugular to his spine, which wasn’t the most comfortable thing in the world. Even breathing came with a small pressure that reminded him of his lack of a voice. However, Patrick was so used to speaking that such a pain came frequently, and even though it hurt, talking to Pete was always worth it. Actually, doing  _ anything  _ with Pete seemed to have no downsides. Maybe that’s how it was like when someone was in love, Patrick pondered.

Pete was already dressed, so Patrick decided that he, too, needed to get dressed, because his fiance was combing through his hair and nearing the fridge, supposedly to find something for breakfast that the two could eat.

“We’re not going to band practice this week, not if you can’t sing,” Pete said from the kitchen, which Patrick could hear despite the walls between them. The singer was starting to feel stressed. Whatever was stealing his voice was  _ not  _ any sort of physical ailment; rather, it was likely to be some sort of dark magic, which by now, Patrick had encountered many times. “I’ll call Andy and Joe and we can head out,” Pete continued, pulling leftover pancakes out of the fridge and into the microwave. Patrick stepped out of their room, dressed in black skinny jeans, a red t-shirt, and an off-white cardigan, and sat down on the couch in the living room to put on his old worn out sneakers. These shoes were so worn out, in fact, that it was hard to tell what brand they belonged to. All Patrick knew was that they were black and extremely comfortable. He put on his dark fedora and got up to move himself to the small dinner table Pete had, where his fiance was setting out three plates; two of them were for each person eating, and the other was to plate the pancakes. A syrup bottle was also on the table, and Patrick was glad to have something to eat.

After the two finished eating, Patrick politely brought the dishes to sink to clean later, and they were both out the door. Pete insisted on driving, and Patrick didn’t have the voice to really argue, so he let himself be wheeled around by his fiance.

“It looks like nothing’s wrong with him,” the doctor said after the two had arrived at the doctor’s office. “But I’ll check again, just to be sure.”

The doctor asked Patrick to open his mouth and promptly shoved it down his throat, only to take it back out again. She shook her head. “It’s completely dry. I’ve never seen a case like this,” she commented. After that, though, she thought for a while, and looking at Pete and Patrick suspiciously, she gave in.

“But I think I might have a remedy.”

:-:

Not being in control of his own body was taking a toll on Casey’s body, as well as his sanity. Thankfully, some promise lied in his wishes to have control of his body once again, and suddenly Casey was himself again. And it felt so  _ good _ . However, with this freedom, he knew that if he took any action to repair what had been done to Patrick Stump, Blurryface would just take control of his body again and redo all he had erased.

Without being able to do what he really wanted to do while free, Casey took his time to do some things he hadn’t done in a while. Drag. It was his favorite pastime in high school (that he diligently kept a secret from his peers), and the side of him that called herself “Cherri Cola” really wanted to trot on stage in thigh-high heels.

Casey enjoyed having a side of him that no one knew, but mostly, drag was a way for him to connect with other queens and kings and make friends, something he didn’t generally have the ability to do. It was relieving to perform in front of people who had no idea of his actual identity, and Casey’s identity was something that he had struggled with for a long time. It reminded him of the thick black line that taunted him from his computer in the case that he wanted to remember something; the line taunted him about the things he didn’t want to remember and the things he couldn’t help but to remember. The things he hadn’t done and the things he had yet to do. Of words gone unsaid and a feeling of lethologica waiting on the tip of his tongue.

It seemed like no time until he was in the dingy “backstage” dressing room of the gay bar he frequented to perform as Cherri Cola. A frizzy wig, a couple pounds of makeup, some foam padding, and a shiny dress was really all it took to make himself appear as this alter-ego.

Cherri Cola was the life of the party. The half-drunk crowd roaring her name was her definition in the dictionary. She was everything Casey wasn’t, but the two halves shared so much in common, as well-- She was flamboyant while Casey preferred the solitude of his room. Speaking of which, he  _ really  _ needed to move out-- he was still living with his mom and little sister.

Something like too soon passed before Casey was wiping off what makeup hadn’t been destroyed by sweat already, even though the cosmetics industry was starting to become self-aware and selling waterproof makeup. The after-show backstage was where all the queens and kings tended to gather to talk about whatever they talked about. Casey wouldn’t know, because he never talked to any of the other performers. Maybe they sold drugs to each other; it was impossible to know, since he decided on solitude long ago.

“You look like you need to unwind,” he heard a voice-- a male voice, though in a place like this it was sometimes tricky to differentiate the two-- from beside him, and Casey was overcome by the feeling of “who, me?” where he wanted to point to himself with an astonished look on his face, only for the man to laugh and nod his head, and the two would start a rather awkward conversation. At that point, the meaning of the man’s words hit Casey, and he shook his head.

“I think I’m good, thank you. I’d rather go to bed early tonight,” Casey said, knowing that there would be a point where Blurryface would take control again and he’d be gone for who-knows-how-long. But the man laughed.

“I didn’t mean it that way, Cola,” the man said, and Casey was tempted to correct the man.

“Just call me Casey,” he replied, “Cola is a stage girl.”

“I’m Ryan then, if we’re introducing ourselves.” he said as Casey was pulling off his wig and starting to look like a man again. Ryan was cute, again, but not Casey’s type. And by “Casey’s type,” he was referring to someone who didn’t mind their boyfriend being possessed by a demon-- or no one. He had this shaggy, wavy brown hair and matching eyes, and a lanky, tall figure that towered over him. Why did Casey have to be so short? There was this knowing look in Ryan’s eyes that made Blurryface, who was hiding in the back of Casey’s head, shudder.

And then the black fog in the back of his head blurred his vision again and he blacked out, only to wake up in the back of his mind again.


	20. The Emperor Wants To Go Shopping For New Clothes, So He Refuses To Go To Goodwill

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Ryan is a social psychologist that studies the social groups formed in the LGBTQ community.  
> Seeing Casey reminds him of Brendon Urie, the half-demon brunette bombshell that made his life exponentially better.  
> (Ryan likes to teach Brendon big words.)

Ryan Ross was not new to the drag scene. In fact, he enjoyed traveling around the country, finding run-down gay bars with local kings and queens that, sometimes, were insanely talented, and he was sure they’d make it to the big leagues. He also enjoyed going backstage to see them take off their masks and talk to each other, because the social groups formed within drag queens and kings was the most interesting thing to Ryan, as a drag queen himself. Instead of grouping into cliques based on interest, they instead socialised with a different queen or king every time. Since these groups fluctuated so much, there were rarely ever any “loner” type people, who didn’t have a group.

Maybe that was why, after his music career, Ryan Ross went to college for social psychology. Because the groups formed within the LGBT community were intriguing to him. But of course, his four-year degree had little use when he found out his best friend (now his boyfriend, but he comes in later) was half-demon, or that friend’s sister knew her way around tarot cards more than her medical degree. No amount of “common sense” could prepare him to leave college and probably get mugged by a vampire (actually, one of Ryan’s best friends was a vampire; Dallon was actually a really nice guy).

It was at a gay bar in Washington where Ryan met a rather dark-feeling drag queen-- Casey Heatherly. The aura surrounding the young man reminded him too much of Ryan’s half-demon boyfriend when his demon would get a little too out of control, and he decided that it would be to his benefit to help this guy out. He had heard that it was Casey who was meddling in Fall Out Boy’s affairs, after all, and it wouldn’t ever hurt to help some old friends.

It was no surprise to Ryan when the darkness he felt grew bigger, and Casey collapsed on the floor. It was a surprise, however, that no one in the room noticed Casey in a heap on the floor.

<|>

_“I’m telling you Brendon, demons aren’t real. At least I have enough common sense to know that,” Ryan argued, his hands flying into the air like he was on the most annoying rollercoaster in Vegas. Well, he was-- Brendon had the energy and attention span of something like a rollercoaster._

_It sounded like something straight out of a storybook. His best friend (at the time-- looking back on it, Ryan could tell that Brendon totally had a thing for him, which was nice considering the fact that Brendon was his boyfriend now and Ryan was pretty sure he was hiding a ring somewhere), Brendon Urie, had more in common with Sam and Dean Winchester from that TV show “Supernatural” than he did himself, but that wasn’t really saying much because Brendon insisted that he was being possessed by a demon at all times, something that Ryan had yet to believe. Actually, Ryan remembered, it was this very conversation that convinced him of how true Brendon’s words were._

_“Well,” Brendon tried to make a clever rebuttal, but failed, “I… all I can say is that I’m not crazy.” He calmed down. Brendon had to take medication proportional to the number of things wrong with his head, and Ryan couldn’t list all of the common names of Brendon’s “disorders.” Bipolar disorder, depression, social anxiety… just to name a few.  So, maybe Brendon was crazy, technically, but he wasn’t deranged, and Ryan doubted that Brendon would lie to him. The two were close._

_“That’s what a crazy person would say, isn’t it?” Ryan joked, playfully nudging Brendon’s shoulder with a closed fist._

_Brendon rolled his eyes, letting himself lean back onto Ryan’s bed. They were both hanging out in Ryan’s room, sitting on his bed until Ryan noticed a dip in the mattress. Ryan followed Brendon and laid down, too._

_"Look, I’m saying this in all honesty--”_

_“I believe you,” Ryan interrupted. Brendon smiled, but didn’t turn to look at Ryan, instead looking at the ceiling like it was the most interesting thing in the world. Ryan turned his gaze toward the ceiling, too, maybe to see what he was looking at that was so interesting._

_There was an ominous feeling in the air, but Ryan couldn’t tell where it was coming from. “I do think you sound crazy and in all honesty I shouldn’t believe you but I do and--” he heard a gasp from beside him and the mattress shook. “Brendon?”_

_The singer’s dark eyes were closed and his face looked peaceful, like he was sleeping, but Ryan sensed that something else was amiss. One of his hands was left entangled in his hair and the other was crossed over his Beatles t-shirt. “Brendon?” Ryan asked again, his face twisted into a concerned expression. It didn’t seem like Brendon was even breathing at that point, but Ryan’s panic had refused to actually set in._

_Just as it was about to, Brendon gasped a breath, creases forming on his forehead as his jaw seemed to unhinge and his eyes opened wide, their normal warm brown color replaced with a menacing and unnatural yellow. Who Ryan realized was not Brendon anymore sat up and looked at Ryan with unblinking eyes and an odd fanged smile. His head tilted to the side, reminiscent of an animal meeting something new._

_Ryan’s panic, dulled only a little by “Brendon”’s awakening, finally started to set in. His eyes darted back and forth as Ryan realised that this was what Brendon was talking about when he spoke of this “demon.” Not just a little pessimist inside his head, but a full blown dark conscious that Ryan was sure wasn’t natural in any shape or form._

_“What--”_

_“Brendon has thought a lot about you,” the demon said through Brendon’s mouth, but the voice was something different. It sounded like something straight out of a Star Wars movie. How fitting for whatever monster this was to interrupt Ryan just as he was about to speak. “If it’s any consolation, he thinks rather… highly of you.” The demon shook Brendon’s head._

_“I apologize, I haven’t introduced myself,” the demon said, and Ryan could see a softness in its demonic eyes. “I am known as the Emperor.”_

<|>

With his past experiences with Emperor, Ryan could only assume Casey’s collapsing could mean one thing, and this time, he was sure that this demon would not have as much of a heart that Emperor did. Even though it was strange for someone like Ryan to “abduct” someone, what else could he do? Leave Casey there, unconscious and possessed? No, of course not, which was why Ryan was leaving that gay bar in Washington with a body slung over his shoulder. If anyone asked, he had drank too much.

Ryan was cautious when he set Casey down on the bed in his hotel room. This qualified as a “business trip” so of course, Brendon, Ryan’s boyfriend, wasn’t traveling with him. Panic! was on tour, anyway. Ryan made sure to collect whatever demon repelling things he had (which was only one thing-- a “magic” circle, which Brendon had taught him a while ago just in case he encountered another demon. Imagine his luck.) just in case Casey didn’t wake up as Casey, which was actually very likely to happen.

As soon as Casey sat up, as if he was returning from the dead, the demon trap triggered and a transparent silver wall appeared between Ryan and whatever Casey was now. Ryan sighed. He had work to do.


	21. Tyler And Josh Get Serious (Wait No Not Like THAT)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Casey is half-knocked out in Ryan's hotel room and Brendon invites a party.
> 
> I'M MAKING MY SCENES LONGER ARE YOU PROUD
> 
> I'M ADDING MORE DETAIL WOO

:-:

Tyler was confused. Blurryface had always been there, lurking in the back of his mind, like a darkness he couldn’t get rid of. At first he was convinced it was just his head, but the pills didn’t work, anyway, so he stopped taking them. Blurryface was pulling the strings in Tyler’s mind to make make his brain do strange things; sometimes he would see things that weren’t real, and sometimes Blurryface would just invade his thoughts.

It didn’t matter now, because Blurryface was gone, and something disastrous was about to happen.

:-:

“Yes, Brendon, I get it. You want to help. But you’re in Vegas and I’m in Washington-- I’m too far away for you to come help, I’m sorry babe.” Ryan chattered into his phone. An indistinct mumbling came from the device, which only Ryan could hear. Casey groaned. Because he had a migraine or because he was sick of being ignored by his warden, he wasn’t sure. Casey had always been a sucker for attention, anyway. Embarrassed, he could hear Blurryface laughing at him within his own head.

“Look, unless you can teleport-- which I’m sure Emperor can do but he probably won’t  _ let  _ you-- you can only help from where you are right now.” Ryan paused to listen to his boyfriend. “Yes, you can get Tyler and Josh to help if you really want to.” He paused again to listen to Brendon on the other line while applying chapstick to his lips and rubbing them together to get his lips un-chapped. He hummed at something his boyfriend said. “Sounds like a plan,” Ryan said, glancing at the hardly awake half-demon. “But I have to go. Bye babe,” He said sweetly, not bothering with Brendon’s attempt to play the  _ “no, you hang up first,”  _ game. He lowered his phone and almost mercilessly ended the call.

Casey-- or Blurryface, rather-- was still caged in whatever trap he had sprung in the first place. There were white markings on the floor that outlined a circle, glowing to somehow make a wall of light, blocking him off from the rest of the world. It decorated the world around him with a smokey white haze. Whenever his hand neared the barrier, an overpowering feeling of discomfort shot up his arm and he’d instinctively jerk away. Nothing like a good light force to counteract the dark. Enough time in there should dull Blurryface’s power, Ryan thought.

There was a light knock on the door, and both Ryan and Casey (Blurryface) lifted their heads to the noise. Ryan made a small motion with his head (that almost went unnoticed by Blurryface)  and then rolled his eyes.

“God, Brendon, is there anything you  _ can’t  _ do?” Ryan asked the closed door, annoyance almost audible in his tone. The door opened, creaking slightly, to reveal a grinning Brendon with two men behind him. One was just about as tall as Ryan was, and the other looked about as tall as Casey, but it was hard to tell because Casey was still half-laying on  the hotel room bed. “And who might you two be?” Ryan asked, shifting his body slightly to see the two men behind Brendon. Immediately he recognized them.

“Tyler! Josh! So nice to see you two, it’s been too long!” he exclaimed, rushing up to hug Brendon and then shaking hands with Brendon’s plus-two. “How’ve you been since Rock and Roll?”

By “Rock and Roll,” Ryan meant the Save Rock and Roll tour, which, while consisting of mainly Fall Out Boy, also had Twenty One Pilots and Panic! At The Disco along for the ride. Tyler nodded, understanding the question, but not yet answering it. He rubbed a hand over his short hair to substitute running his fingers through it because it simply wasn’t long enough. Josh, standing beside him, shook his head to toss his curly, dyed red bangs to the side.

“We’ve been good, actually,” Tyler said, with Josh nodding along beside him. “We have been working on a new album and I’m really getting used to the ukulele now.” Tyler had been learning the ukulele on and off since their previous album,  _ Vessel _ , and had just recently started to commit to learning. “Maybe I’ll get a mandolin, or something.” He was the kind of person to learn many instruments one after the next, though his first instrument was piano and he generally stuck with that, but he also played guitar, bass guitar, ukulele, and probably many more that he hadn’t revealed yet. Being the vocalist for the duo, though, put him in the center of the spotlight. Tyler shrugged.

“Other than that, it’s just been interviews and hanging out at important people’s parties,” Josh chimed in. Ryan could completely agree to that. When he was in  _ Panic!  _ with Brendon, the time in between tours of albums was always bland. Their manager, who just so happened to be Pete Wentz, had suggested that they review the data that the office workers at  _ Decaydance Records  _ had come up with, but it was the most boring thing Ryan had ever done aside from school. Other than looking at data, important people always wanted them to play private gigs because of their fame, which would make the gig anything but private. He just didn’t understand some people. When he had first gone to college, Ryan remembered the surprise of his roommate upon seeing him.

It was just initial shock and the occasional disbelief, but most of their encounters went something like:  _ “Wait, aren’t you that guy from that one band?”  _ or  _ “I still can’t believe you’re  _ **_the_ ** _ Ryan Ross.”  _ It became annoying after a while, but Ryan put up with it. If he wasn’t going to be a musician, he needed a degree. He was glad to leave when he graduated, but just thinking of his college years made him think of when he had to leave Brendon to pursue his education.

No, he told himself.  _ I’m not about to get caught up in my own thoughts.  _ He knew that getting caught up in his thoughts could lead to him getting completely immersed in memories, and he didn’t want to relive any of them-- good or bad.

“Watcha’ thinking about?” Ryan felt the bed dip beside him and didn’t realize he had sat down until Brendon’s arm was slung around his shoulders. Brendon, of all people, could easily recognize when he went into his deep-thought states, which could sometimes prove to be rather convenient. Ryan hummed in recognition of his question.

“Memories.”

Ryan didn’t elaborate any more, but Brendon didn’t push. If the memories were that touchy, he had a good idea what they were, anyway, without Ryan having to say it out loud. It was nice to not have to say anything and still understand each other like they were both parts of the same person.

What Ryan was thinking of, though, was something he didn’t want to remember. And he wouldn’t, id he had anything to say about it.

Tyler and Josh had found some chairs in the room, oblivious to Casey laying haphazardly on the bed. Well, they weren’t oblivious so much as they simply ignored him. Casey groaned and flipped onto his other side.

“Now, Brendon,” Ryan said, finally released from his brief trip to his house of memories, “how exactly did you convince Emperor, of all people, to teleport you here?” He said it with a smile starting to brush over his features, no matter how hard he tried to keep a poker face. Sure, he worked at gay bars across the country, but he hadn’t played much while he was there.

The Emperor preferred to be referred to as a person, and Ryan and his group of friends had agreed that the term “person” just meant an intelligent being, rather than a human. Everyone agreed on the decision. Casey gave the group his full attention as he heard an unfamiliar name, and Tyler softly laughed.

Brendon rolled his eyes playfully. “Well,” he said, dragging the word out just to annoy his boyfriend, “it’s a trade secret.” With the vague answer, Brendon poked Ryan on the tip of his nose, causing laughter to erupt from both of them.

“Alright, enough of you two being all lovey-dovey,” Josh interjected, not much harshness in his voice at all. “We already sort of know why we’re here, but Brendon doesn’t like giving details. So what are we dealing with?”


	22. "Don't Let Brendon Hear You Call Me Dr. Urie"

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Kara Urie is the doctor that has a remedy for Patrick, but explains a little bit of angel/demon lore and gives a little Brendon/Emperor history
> 
> Or an insanely long chapter

“If I’m going to be helping you out like this,” the doctor said, “you’ll have to know me on a first name basis. I don’t think my brother could keep himself from joking around if he saw his sister being called  _ Dr. Urie _ .”

Both Patrick and Pete felt idiotic for not looking at the lady’s name tag, reading that exact name:  _ Dr. Urie _ .

“Call me Kara,” she said, stretching her hand out like a secondary greeting. Patrick shook it, and noticed that her hair was only a few shades lighter than Brendon’s, and they both had a similar face shape, with well defined jawlines and similar eyes. They were both the same cocoa color. She quietly tucked some hair behind her ear, and the only reason Patrick really noticed was because of the long, feather earrings she was wearing. They were so long, in fact, that the brushed her shoulders before she tucked them back with her hair. This was obviously a sibling of Brendon’s, though he had no idea if she was younger or older because Brendon hadn’t seemed to age since his high school years.

Pete said, “You said you had some sort of remedy?” He shifted in his seat as if he were trying to get comfortable, but the checkup room’s chairs were fairly comfortable so Patrick highly doubted that was the reason. Kara nodded.

“You two know Brendon, of course. He toured with you on  _ Rock and Roll _ .” She said, throwing away the dry popsicle stick she had used on Patrick and capping the jar full of many more before stowing it away and closing the cabinet door. Patrick caught a glimpse of other checkup supplies inside the cabinet before she closed it, like a bigger jar of cotton balls, and a couple boxes of Band-Aids.

Why did everyone shorten the name of that album by only one word? It seriously confused Patrick. Nevertheless, both Pete and Patrick nodded.

“And you know the story of how our parents were strictly Mormon, and he didn’t believe in it, so he left?” she asked rhetorically.

Patrick didn’t feel like experiencing the fiery pain that came with speech, so he simply nodded again. Pete vocalised an affirmative in his place. Patrick didn’t like how she was slowly feeding them clues, and just wanted her to get to the point already. He was  _ dying  _ to know. Well, dying couldn’t be too much worse than the pain in his throat when he screamed that morning. Kara laughed and shook her head.

“You might not believe it, but none of us were Mormon in the first place.”

Patrick wanted to be shocked, but found that he couldn’t. Maybe it was because of all the odd things that had happened to him, that now a surprise like this wasn’t much to sweat over. Kara continued to clean up her workspace, cutting the paper that protected the small bed-like piece of furniture that patients would usually sit upon for examinations and throwing it into the small trash can in the corner. Who knew if someone had buttcheek-herpes, or something. Patrick was tempted to laugh.  _ No,  _ he thought to himself. He was a grown man.

She seemed impressed at the two’s lack of shock. “In actuality,” she continued, covering the bed-whatever it was with some more paper, “our family was extremely involved in demons and other non-religious spiritual practices. Mom taught us to read tarot cards since we were young, but I seemed to be the only one with a knack for it.” She finished with the paper and her hands searched for something else to do.

Deciding to quell her itch to do something, she started putting away her computer, closing out of medical files and shutting the machine down before swiveling the mechanism that held it out of the way. “But more to the point-- Brendon is…” she paused, starting to fidget even though her hands were occupied. “Golly, I don’t know how to say it…” she trailed off again. Pete didn’t push her to answer, and as much as Patrick wanted a resolution to the suspense, he physically couldn’t speak without severe repercussions. Her eyes seemed to darken as she took several deep breaths. It was harder not to talk than Patrick had originally anticipated.

“Brendon had an incident a while ago, and while I don’t want to delve much into the subject, it resulted in Brendon becoming a mix of human and demon.”

Patrick could visibly see that it took a lot for Kara to stop beating around the bush-- it looked like she could’ve kept talking forever if the subject hadn’t come up. Patrick immediately started to feel bad for being so eager to hear this news. It might’ve been old news for Kara, but it was definitely new for Pete and Patrick both. Patrick felt a surge of admiration as, yet again, she took a breath and started to explain.

“My family knew very well that everyone has a personal demon, and much like a guardian angel, it would watch everything you did and protect you from its opposite. In general, personal demons have a tendency to influence you to act in ways that harm others or yourself, which is why we also have guardian angels. Of course, you never see them or feel their presence because they are constantly bickering with each other. On the flip side, guardian angels are assigned to influence you into doing good things, but are much less powerful than demons. In this way, humans are much more inclined to ignore good while not necessarily doing evil. The basic principle is that the guardian angel only works if you have a good heart, which all people have, but eventually the demon always wins. It is… sad, to say the least.”

What did this have to do with Brendon, Patrick pondered, but Kara didn’t notice his thoughts and continued. Pete was respectfully quiet.

“Normally, everyone is born with both and angel and a demon, but the lack of either one is possible and happens quite a lot. The lack of an angel is what causes mental problems, because it changes how the brain develops and how a child acts from a very young age, and if a child can’t resist the evil of the demon, the child goes homicidal.” Kara paused briefly to shake her head at the misfortune of it all, then continued. “The lack of a demon, however, is quite different. The angel is not power-hungry like the demon, and also physically cannot take over the child’s mind. However, this can cause a disconnection from society because the angel is weak from having no opposing side and cannot influence a child’s actions at all, making the child seem sheltered and introverted to an extreme because they don’t know how to interact with other people. This is mostly what causes manic depression.”

Patrick looked at Pete nervously, this new information scaring him a bit, but he was also eager to learn more. Pete stayed quiet, empathetic to his fiance’s lack of a voice, and instead wrapped an arm around him and nodded at Kara to keep going. She cleared her throat, as if preparing herself.

“Many of the people in mental facilities or diagnosed with a mental illness have some sort of problem with their inner balance of good and bad. It logically explains why they happen, though, because something like Schizophrenia happens when a host is aware of their angel and demon, assuming that they have both.

“This is exactly what happened with Brendon. Our parents didn’t know he had no angel until it was too late and…” Kara paused to gather the courage to continue.

“You don’t have to continue if you don’t want to,” Pete said, almost in an insisting way. She shook her head in refusal. Kara would finish the story.

“It’s been so long, it’s hard to remember the exact details at this point. Sorry,” she apologized, a smile playing on her lips. She was pacing across the room now, something that was likely just an odd habit, and fiddling with anything in sight. Her hand let go of her hair twisted in between her fingers as she shook her head, making her hair swish along with it.

“He called himself  _ Emperor _ , and he was a rare exception to the rule that all demons are inherently evil. It was even rarer to find a good demon with no angel, because both aren’t exactly common. Our parents tried to figure Emperor out, but he was the most unpredictable little thing! Right when Mom and Dad started to unravel his behavior, he did something that completely threw them off!”

Kara started to laugh at the story.

“Sometimes, Brendon would let Emperor control his body for a short amount of time, and he did things that Brendon would never do, like jump into the pool from the roof, and other stunts.I wouldn’t be surprised if Emperor got Brendon his first date. But one time… it went too far.

“I wasn’t there to experience it, but I heard the story from one of Brendon’s old friends that was there.” Kara suddenly became grim. “He got bullied a lot in school, and I’d assume Emperor got really mad, because the two were pretty close-- Brendon and Emperor-- and took control of his body to fight off the bully.” She shook her head with some emotion hidden behind her eyes.

“Emperor injured the kid so bad that he hardly got out of the hospital. The poor kid had a serious concussion, all four limbs were broken, and his spine was cracked. He wasn’t paralyzed, but the kid came real close to it. Brendon was stuck in depression and guilt for the next few weeks; it was so bad that a doctor prescribed him multiple medications, even though he didn’t really need them. He only needed the ones for his anxiety and hyperactive disorders, which came along long before.

“I just… these demons are dangerous, no matter how good they are, because they can be influenced by outside forces just like humans. It took us all a lot of time to trust Emperor again, though Brendon was convinced right away that Emperor was just being protective.”

The whole story had left Patrick rattled, and Pete squeezed him a little tighter.

Kara took a few more deep breaths. “Sorry, I got a little off-track. I was talking about a remedy, wasn’t I?”


End file.
